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AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 



BEING RAMBLING RECOLLECTIONS OF 
MANY YEARS OF MY LIFE 






M. E: W> SHERWOOD 

AUTHOR OF " MANXERS AND SOCIAL USaGKS 
"A TRANSPLANTED ROSE" ETC. 




NEW YORK AND LONDOX 

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

1899 






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Copyright, 1897, by Harper e^ Brothers. 



All right* retervtd. 



it IBetiicate tfjfs jSoofe 

TO MY SONS 
SAMUEL SHERWOOD 

AND 

ARTHUR MURRAY SHERWOOD 

Ita, filii met dilectissimi, vivitote ut majoribus vestria decori 
sitis, posteri vero niemoria vestra glorientur et honestentur 



PKEFACE 



KoussEATj once sent to Yoltaire an ode addressed to 
Posterity. 

'' Yoici une lettre qui n'arrivera jamais a son adresse," 
said Yoltaire, in his cruel way. 

Perhaps this should discourage me from attempting 
to collect my rambling recollections under a title which 
is stolen from Petrarch ; but I am encouraged by think- 
ing that Petrarch will not care for this transparent ap- 
propriation of his forgotten title, and I am sure that I 
shall not care if Posterity never receives my letter. I 
shall not be here to watch for an answer. 

And yet I shall be glad if a record of the changeful 
times in which I have lived gives pleasure to any one 
who reads my book now, or to those Avho come after 
me. It has been a remarkable era. Progress has har- 
nessed several new steeds to her car since I started to 
travel onward. Life is much more full of comfort now 
than it has ever been. Some one asks, Is not life stifled 
in appliances ? Are we any happier than our ancestors 
were? Is a single day of Europe worth a cycle of 
Cathay ? Have we not taken on some neuralgias and 
malarias and nervous prostrations? I leave that ques- 
tion for Posterity to answer, and I am rather glad that 
I shall not be responsible for the reply. 

But I will answer Mallock's question, " Is life worth 



VI PREFACE 

living ?" in the affirmative. I have found it eminently 
so. Life has been an enjoyable experiment, and amus- 
ing, in spite of its sorrows and disappointments. Life 
is a success if we can work and laugh. It has been a 
perpetual pleasure to me to see luxury march on with 
giant tread ; to watch the great city of Kew York grow ; 
to welcome art and beauty into our houses ; to see the 
statues and the buildings improve in every decade. It 
has even been a pleasure (the sure accompaniment of ad- 
vancing years) to say, " Oh, we had greater geniuses on 
the stage and in the forum, and greater beauties at the 
balls, in the old time !" That gentle murmur of com- 
plaint is, however, lost in the magnificent march of the 
coming centuries. Quite worth while it is to have seen 
the transition period. 

M. E. W. S. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

Early Days in New Hampshire — My Father and Mother — Mr. Emer- 
son's School at Boston — Daniel Webster at Marshfield— Visit to 
Washington — "Tyler Too" — Charles Dickens— Along the Ohio 
and Down the Mississippi — The Carved Oxen at Nauvoo— Joseph 
Smith and the Mormons Page 1 

CHAPTER II 

Visit to Dubuque and the Wisconsin Prairies — A Steamboat Trip 
through the Great Lakes with Mr. Van Buren and J. K. Paulding 
— Chicago and Mayor Ogden — James Russell Lowell and Maria 
White — A Visit to the "Experiment" at Brook Farm — Mr. Rip- 
ley, Mr. Curtis, Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller .... 28 

CHAPTER III 

Washington in the Forties — General Franklin Pierce — The Mexican 
War — John Quincy Adams, Lincoln, Calhoun, Benton, and Clay 
— A Sight for Northern " Doughfaces " — The 7th -of- March 
Speech — Chester Harding — Two Stories of Webster — President 
Taylor's Inauguration — State Balls and Dinners — The Society of 
the Capital Half a Century Ago » .... 41 

CHAPTER IV 

Early Simplicity in Dress and Manners — My Wedding-dress and my 
Marriage— A Novel Wedding Trip— St. Thomas and Santa Cruz 
— A Celebrated Lawsuit and a Unique Christmas Festival — Ha- 
vana — Rachel, the Famous French Actress, Visited the United 
States in 1854 — Fanny Kemble — Thackeray's Visit to America — 
The Purchase and Restoration of Mount Vernon 58 



Vlll CONTENTS 

CHAPTER V 

The Visit of the Prince of Wales— The Ball at the Academy of Music 
— The First Days of the War — The Sanitary Commission — The 
Metropolitan Fair— Washington in 1863 — General McClellan and 
the French Princes— A Ball at the White House and Picnics in 
Camp Page 85 

CHAPTER VI 

Some Memories of Distinguished People— The New England Literati 
—Mrs. Sigourney and Miss Sedgwick — Dr. Bellows and theTran- 
scendentalists — Mr, Bryant's Dinners — Recollections of Booth — 
The lago Dress — Chief -J ustice Chase — Sherman and Grant — Ade 
laide Ristori 96 

CHAPTER VII 

A Glimpse at Literary Boston — Prescott, Emerson, and Agassiz — 
Darley's Picture of Washington Irving and His Friends — The 
Knickerbocker Magazine — Mrs. Botta's Salon — Reminiscences, of 
Bancroft and Bryant — A Birthday at the Century Club — Long- 
fellow 117 

CHAPTER VIII 

My First Visit to England — Chester Cathedral — Sunshine in London — 
Westminster Abbey and the British Museum — English Art — At 
the English Dinner table — Our American Hospitality an Inher- 
ited Virtue — Oxford, Kenilworth, and Stratford-on-Avon — The 
English Attitude towards America 133 

CHAPTER IX 

The Social Side of London— Sir William Stirling-Maxwell and Sir 
John Bowring— Mr. Motley and General Adam Badeau— A Visit 
to Hampton Court — Racial Characteristics and Differentiation — 
The Lord Byron Scandal Again— ^A Page of Unwritten History — 
Across the Channel to Paris 147 

CHAPTER X 

A Little Journey in the Land of William Tell — Basle and Lucerne — 
On the Way to Interlaken — The Jungfrau and the Giesbach — 



CONTENTS ix 

Byron and Voltaire— Geneva and Mont Blanc — An Ascent of the 
Brevent — Over the Simplon Road and through the Gorge of 
Gondo— On the Italian Slope Page 157 

CHAPTER XI 

The New York of Twenty Years Ago — Social and Geographical 
Changes — Grace Church and " Old Brown" — Three of New 
York's Distinguished Hostesses — Mrs. Roberts's Dinuer to Presi- 
dent and Mrs. Hayes — Mr. Evarts and his Donkey Story — Trav- 
ers and Jerome — Bret Harte — George Boker and Calvert — Our 
School for Scandal 177 

CHAPTER XII 

Second Visit to London — A Day in the House of Commons — London 
in 1885 — The Ascot Races and Dr. Holmes — My Presentation at 
Court and a State Ball at Buckingham Palace — A Supper with 
Irving at the Beefsteak Club — Mr. Gladstone and the Chapel 
Royal — A Dinner with Sir John Millais — Mr. Browning, Sir 
Frederic Leigh tou, Mrs. Procter, and Du Maurier . . . . 201 

CHAPTER XIII 

My Continental Note-book — The Praise of Paris — Meissonier and Pol- 
itics—The Salon of 1886— "Varnishing Day" — Sara Bernhardt's 
" Theodora "—Nice and Monte Carlo — La Duchesse de Pomar, 
Lady Caithness — A Sad Loss to the American Colony . . 232 

CHAPTER XIV 

Imperial Rome — The American Colony — W. W. Story, Bishop Whip- 
ple, and the Terrys — My Presentation at the Italian Court — A 
Ball at the Quirinal — Lord Houghton — Two Valentines — Modern 
Rome— The Vatican Library and Gardens 239 

CHAPTER XV 

The Queen's Jubilee — London in Gala Dress — The Queen's Garden 
Party — A Dash into Holland and the Low Countries — Dikes and 
Ditches— Picture-galleries and Windmills — Rotterdam and Am- 
sterdam — The Zuyder Zee and a Day at Marken — Forgotten 
Bruges and Prosperous Ghent— Antwerp and The Hague— Ostend 
the Frivolous 265 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XVI 

In Praise of Aix-les-Bains — Its Cures and Its Amusements — Rous- 
seau's House — La Grande Chartreuse and Its Famous Liqueur — 
An Exercise in Russian Linguistics — The Marriage of the Due 
d'Aosta — A Mediaeval F^te — The Queen of Italy and Her Royal 
Graces — The House of Savoy and Its Early Home at Aix — English 
Visitors — Princess Beatrice's Birthday Page 291 

CHAPTER XVII 

Letters from Spain— Barcelona and Tarragona — Roman, Carthaginian, 
and Moorish Antiquities — The Land of Don Quixote— Cordova 
and Its Mosque— Granada and the Alhambra— Fair Seville— The 
Donkey in Spain 319 

CHAPTER XVIII 

Letters from Spain to Friends at Home — Further Thoughts of Madrid 
— At the Bull-fight — Toledo, the Majestic Crown of Spain — The 
Cathedral and Its Memories — Moorish Houses and Toledo Blades 
—The Escorial— The Library— The Pantheon— Burgos and- Fare- 
well to Spain 338 

CHAPTER XIX 

An Imaginary Conversation with an Editor— The Effect of Fashion on 
our Social Life — Our American Society and Its Leaders — Snobs 
and Snobbery — Society and Its Mission in Our National Life — 
King Fashion and His Power—A Last Word 363 



AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 



AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 



CHAPTER I 



Early Days in New Hampshire — My Father and Mother — Mr. Emer- 
son's School at Boston — Daniel Webster at Marshfield — Visit to 
Washington— "Tyler Too"— Charles Dickens— Along the Ohio 
and Down the Mississippi— The Carved Oxen at Nauvoo— Joseph 
Smith and the Mormons. 

My recollections of childhood are very vivid, espe- 
cially of my father, a tall knd most picturesque man, 
with blue eyes and fine curling black hair, with a great 
laughing mouth full of white teeth and of eloquent 
voice, and a laugh which filled the whole county of 
Cheshire; a man who liked to dance and to march, 
who never heard music but to keep step to it ; a man, 
in fact, who had the veriest charm for children — a tre- 
mendous vitality. 

In those days my father, still a boy himself, and a 
very boyish boy, was the best hand of us all at snow- 
balling in the winter, teaching us to slide and to skate, 
and readino^ aloud to us in the evenino^ the immortal 
stories of Walter Scott, with a mingled joy and pathos 
which the author himself would have enjoyed ; a kind 
and loving and generous man, full of genius and eccen- 
tricity, who dressed in furs and moccasins in January, 
when he would go up to the White Mountains to hunt 



2 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

the moose with Anans, an Indian of the St. Francois 
tribe, who had been educated at Hanover, at Dartmouth 
College — that venerable institution founded by an Eng- 
lish Earl for the education of the Indians, which, accord- 
ing to Anans, " spoiled a great many good Indians and 
made very poor white men." 

Years after, in Rome, I met the Earl's great-grand- 
daughter. Lady Louisa Legge, and as she asked me with 
great naivete about this bequest I had to tell her it had 
been relegated to the humble prosaic education of white 
boys. 

But perhaps it had made Anans a better companion 
for my father, who had a real friendship for this son 
of the forest. I remember the camp in the wilderness, 
Anans and his Indian wife and their pappoose swung in 
a birch-bark cradle under a spreading tree, and a little 
pair of moccasins which Mrs. Anans wrought with beads 
for my little feet when as a child I was taken to the 
White Mountains. Perhaps to that I owe my love of 
wandering, for I have never been able to keep them 
still since. 

My father must have been a very good housekeeper, 
for I remember always a most hospitable table, and a 
larder full of succulent delicacies — venison and moose 
tongue, wild turkey and quail (shot with his own un- 
erring gun), besides all the excellent provision of the 
domestic farm-yard, and the yearly pig-killing, which 
frightful, bloody scene I used to peep at surreptitiously 
from my nursery window. A fine series of cellars un- 
derlined our large house, dark, wandering, limitless, like 
the mysteries of Udolpho, and filled with binns, where 
vegetables kept all winter without freezing, together 
with the hams of the late slaughtered pig, and his be- 
quest of wreaths of sausages. A great barrel of Ma- 



MY FATHER AND MOTHER 3 

deira from John and Charles March, Xew York, was 
rolled in every fall, and my father and my uncle Eob- 
ert, another son of Anak (for they were both six feet 
four), used to attend to the bottling of this, then daily 
used, fine wine. I never drank an}^ of it, but I have 
the ichor of it in my veins to-day, innocent as I am, 
in the shape of rheumatism. "My grandfatlier left 
me the gout, without any cellar of wine to keep it 
up on," said James Kussell Lowell, and I might say the 
same. My father was lawyer, politician, and military 
man. I never heard him addressed by any lesser title 
than Captain, and he was a captain of thousands for 
fifty years ; after that he was called General, as his fa- 
ther was called the " old Squire " all his life, a tribute 
to the customs of the Old World which I have always 
remembered with pleasure. 

James Wilson, my grandfather, I remember as a hand- 
some and distinguished figure. He was exceedingly 
fond of dress, and never walked up the street but in a 
full-dress suit, with a ruffled shirt and white cravat. In 
the ruffle was placed a topaz pin surrounded b}^ pearls. 
In bis fine, well-kept hand was a gold-headed cane, and 
his feet were in polished shoes ; he looked the rich and 
respected citizen. 

"There goes the old Squire, as vain as a peacock," 
I overheard a workmg-man say one dsiv. But I was 
ver}^ much afraid of this vision of old-time elegance, for 
he did not like to see me romping along the street, 
and once addressed me in this terrible manner : " Mary 
Elizabeth, I am very sorry to see a pupil of Miss Fiske's 
school, and my granddaiujhter^ dancing on the public 
highway." I did stop dancing until after his dear back 
was turned, but hypocrisy is the tribute which vice paj^s 
to virtue. I kept on dancing for man}" j^ears, street 



4 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

or no street, but I took good care not to let him see 
me. 

This splendid old person had been a classmate of John 
Quincy Adams at Harvard, and Mr. Adams told me af- 
terwards that he remembered my grandfather as " the 
best-dressed man in college." '' He used to wear a scarlet 
coat and knee - breeches, and was the strongest and best 
wrestler in college," says my authority. I imagine this 
coat had cost his mother many a hard bout of spinning 
and weaving, for this brave woman went to Boston twice 
a year on horseback with the products of her loom, that 
she might educate her oldest son, and proudly she dressed 
him well. 

She and her husband, Eobert Wilson, had come over 
from Ireland together, as children, in that first great 
emig-ration of the Scotch-Irish to America — those un- 
dismayed Presbyterians, who brought such noble- gifts 
with them, and who became such important settlers 
for the new colonies. Eobert Wilson, a relative of 
General Stark, fought in the Eevolutionary war, and 
settled down, an impoverished man, in Peterboro, N. H.; 
but his brave wife, full of good blood, kept up the 
traditions of her English and Scotch ancestry. The 
eldest son must be educated — indeed, she educated two 
sons at Harvard, a feat of extraordinary valor in those 
days. 

Both lived to honor her, and she lived to see them 
both in Congress, a fact which delighted her much. Her 
son James, my grandfather, saw the Capitol burned by 
the British. My father Tvas a veritable Irishman, more 
Irish than Scotch, and he always reminded me, after I 
grew older, of the sketches of Grattan. His eloquence, 
which was marvellous, could make even a IS'ew Hamp- 
shire jury laugh and cry, and he became the leading 



MY FATHER 



advocate of his State. He was impulsive and lavish, 
imprudent and always in hot water, although, , like the 
clever Bishop Wilberforce, " he always came out cleaner 
than he went in." He was philanthropic, and wise (for 
other people). New Hampshire enjoys to-day, in her 
fine roads, the result of his wise forecast, for he helped 
to legislate for them, and her blind and lunatic asylums 
owe much to his great heart and brilliant brain. He 
was a lovely, dear, big playmate to his little children. 
We kept on admiring him until we were no longer 
little; but I can never forget that sense of protec- 
tion and security with which I crept into those huge 
arms, or the love and warmth of that grand, magnifi- 
cent embrace, when I was cold, unhappy, or misunder- 
stood. 

He was amusing too, with his guns and game, the 
prodigious glory of his military uniforms, blue with gold 
facings, and a long yellow plume in his chapeau hras, 
which I found delightfully picturesque. He was a 
Mason as well, and I often wickedly opened a secret 
drawer in his closet where I saw strange jewels and 
insignia which it was not expected that I should behold. 
On all occasions when a speech was permissible he made 
one, and his voice was superb; he could be heard 
" across the Atlantic," and later on, when he vowed to 
elect the first General Harrison, in 1840, " Tippecanoe 
and Tyler too," I often heard him address five thousand 
people, all hanging on his every word. Mr. Webster 
called him the "first of the stump speakers," and the 
Hon. Henry Wilson, born a Colbaith, told me that he 
changed his name to Wilson from admiration of my 
father's eloquence. 

He was a strange, romantic outcrop of Irish blood 
and Puritan surroundings, singularly unlike his prudent, 



6 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

reserved father. As a man of genius is unlike his race 
and is often misunderstood, my father was misunder- 
stood, and I fear he became unhappy and disappointed. 
His political idol was Mr. Webster, and when Mr. Web- 
ster made the 7th-of-March speech my father's political 
heart broke. 

A good patriot and a fine, unselfish character, always 
ready to work for any good cause. General James Wil- 
son lived to be eighty-four years old, and died in the 
house where he had made us all so happy. The State 
offered him a public funeral, for who had served it so 
well? The town of Keene, where he was loved and 
honored, suspended business, as the soldiers of his own 
" Keene Light Infantry " escorted him to his last home. 
It was a beautiful day in May, and Monadnock, his 
neighboring giant, looked down upon him in a full-dress 
uniform of blue and gold. The children of the public 
schools stood in line as he was carried along. In the 
church his much-loved pastor said : " To whom are these 
great honors paid ? To the silver-tongued orator, to the 
soldier, to the learned lawyer, to the 'politician f ]^o, to 
the man of heart ;^' and that he was. 

As I looked my last on his peaceful face I noticed that 
his black curls were scarcely streaked with gray. They 
la}^ in still infantile luxuriance as he had always worn 
them around his massive brow. The strange contradic- 
tion, which had pervaded his nature — the child and the 
giant — it was all there — noble, lovable, and youthful 
to the last. 

My mother, a beautiful and quiet person, was the 
antipodes of her husband. Hers was a soul made for 
renunciation, and the Puritan element was strong in her. 
She never allowed herself to lavish caresses upon her 
children, but she was their faithful friend in illness, and 



MY MOTHER 



always stood ready — the very genius of hospitality — to 
feed the hungry and to clothe the poor. When I reflect 
on all that a housewife had to meet in cold 'New Hamp- 
shire winters, with the thermometer at 28° below zero 
and no furnace, I can but wonder at and admire her pluck 
and her ingenuity, for her parlor windows were full of 
hot-house plants all winter ; and I think I never went to 
a party for thirty years in after-life that I did not seem 
to breathe the scent of the little bouquet which she 
always had ready for me in those early days — a white 
rose, a sprig of geranium, and a clove pink, with some 
sweet-scented verbena. I can see her almost statuesque 
dignity still, and the rich, red lips, which rarely parted 
in a smile ; but when they did, what a perfect set of 
teeth ! A slice of fresh cocoanut was not more deli- 
ciously white and fresh, and her complexion of lilies 
and roses remained with her to the last. How could 
such wonderful beauty have survived that cold climate ? 
Years after, at Washington, these charms of hers excited 
national admiration. She received it with the calmness 
of the mother of the Gracchi ; indeed, she was a study 
after the antique. 

Perhaps the early death of her boys — victims to 
those cruel winters, victims of croup and scarlet-fever — 
had saddened her ; but I do not remember my mother as 
enjoying her beauty or as ever seeming frivolous or vain. 
She was apt to be well dressed — that seemed to crop out 
of her inner consciousness — and she had " love, honor, 
obedience, troops of friends "; but she died at fifty, look- 
ing only twenty, and I often wish that I could go back 
and make her smile that too rare smile, too often in- 
terrupted by tears. 

Her large, populous, and busy household was presided 
over below-stairs by Eoxana, the last of a noble race — 



AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

an American servant, the best cook that ever suggested 
the Physiologie du Gout. When I forget, O E-oxana 1 thy 
clear soups, light bread, and delicate desserts, thy coffee, 
better than any I have drunk in Paris ; when I am un- 
grateful for thy broiled birds and thy superb treatment 
of venison — 

" The haunch was a picture for painters to study ; 
The fat was so white and the lean was so ruddy" — 

when I forget thy cookery, O Koxana ! may I be con- 
demned to eat sawdust all my days ! 

From the amount of sawdust and bad cookery which 

1 have eaten I might consider myself punished for in- 
gratitude; but no! there was never such a cook as 
Roxana ! 

The physical conditions of my bringing-up were emi- 
nently healthy. The good and plentiful table, the splen- 
did, exhilarating air, the exercise on horseback, the fine 
sleigh-rides in an immense gilded structure called " The 
Sleigh," which my father had had built for his own long 
limbs, and to accommodate a large family and all the 
neighbors — a sleigh which reminded one of St. Petersburg 
— the fascinating summers and autumns, with the picnics 
and the walks and excursions in that prettiest and most 
finished valley which surrounds Keene (worthy of its 
English-named county, Cheshire) ; with Monadnock, a 
stone mountain, shaped like Vesuvius, which Nature 
dropped from her apron as she was going up to make 
the White Mountains ; those pine woods, as ample as 
the Pineta of Ravenna ; the soft hills wooded to the 
top ; the wide, fertile, and picturesque meadows ; the 
slow and sluggish current of the Ashuelot, winding 
among the drooping willows and stately elms — afforded 
days for the pleasures of budding girlhood which were 



EAELY HEADING 9 

unrivalled. Then Keene was an agreeable, sociable 
place, full of scholarly men and handsome matrons, who 
had homes to which any one would like to be invited. 
We had parties and balls, and occasionally a military 
ball, and I never imagined that there was such a thing 
as ennui. We read prodigiously, and that atmosphere 
of culture for which Boston has been so much, perhaps, 
laughed at penetrated to our very midst. We were 
intimate with the Sage of Weimar and with Thomas 
Carlyle. Emerson came up to lecture to us, and we 
welcomed the first little green books which emanated 
from Boz and the yellow-colored Thackeray s. The first 
yellow cover I ever saw held Becky Sharp in its em- 
brace. It was the purest and best society I have seen. 
]^o unclean thing came near it. But — alas that there 
is always a but! — my mother's clear blue eyes, sharp 
as a Damascus blade, cut through the dignified preten- 
sions of Miss F 's school. She found out that I was 

individually learning nothing, and I was surprised one 
night reading Miss Edgeworth's Hele7i at the hour of 
two in the morning. 

I have always illogically wished that Miss Edge- 
worth, now sunk into undeserved oblivion, could have 
lived to hear that anybody sat up all night to read 
her decorous Helen. What fin-de-siecle girl will do it 
now? 

But I hurt nothing but my e3^es in this nocturnal im- 
propriety. The one candle was blown out, and I was 
rebuked. My mother told me that Mrs. Brown and 
Mrs. Selden had called on her the day before to say 
that they feared Mary Elizabeth was reading too 
many novels; that Mr. Tilden, the head of the circu- 
lating library, said that the same offending M. E. took 
out two novels every week, while Lucretia Brown took 



10 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

out Mrs. Chaporee's Letters and The Serious Call ; and 
Mrs. Selden said she thought it very bad for a girl's 
future to be reading novels all the time. Alas ! when 
I was put through a severe examination I stood A 'No. 1 
in Scott, Bulwer, Edgeworth, and Miss Austen, but I 
did not know much geography nor the least arithmetic, 
so I was marched into my father's office, where he was 
at work upon a complicated law -case. My mother, as 
beautiful and quite as severe as Dante's avenging angel, 
stood pale and terrible, addressing the busy man (who 
found it quite inconvenient to receive us at that time) 
with these words, which are burned into my heart : 
" Colonel Wilson, here is our daughter, whom we have sent 
to Miss Fiske's school, and of whose abilities and studi- 
ous habits we had hoped so much. She was reading a 
novel at two o'clock last night, and she cannot parse a 
word of Paradise Lost. She cannot bound Pennsyl- 
vania, she does not know where Jerusalem is, and she 
thinks six times six may be forty." 

My father's sense of humor was so strong that he 
burst into a fit of laughter which shook the house, 
and I burst into tears. He took me to that ample 
breast of his, and said, "]N'ever mind, we will send 
you to Boston to school. Don't cry. Don't read so 
many novels, and obey your mother. But how does 
it happen that you do not know the multiplication- 
table?" 

" Father, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it ! — so I write 
Matilda Slocum's compositions, and she does my sums." 

" Well," said he, "- you have been cheating yourself 
most bravely. Let Matilda's compositions alone, and do 
you tell me the 'nines and sixes' to-morrow night at 
dinner." 

So a very delightful dinner of turkey was spoiled for 



11 

me the next day at four o'clock, and I was put on a 
short commons of novels. Bulwer was entirely forbid- 
den, and I read Napoleon at St. Helena. I was allowed 
Walter Scott (God bless him !) and Miss Austen. God 
bless her a thousand times! She lighted the weary 
way of a poor little girl for a very dreary winter. 

I think the Eeverend Mr. Livermore came in about this 
time to teach me a little German, to soften the asperi- 
ties of Mrs. Selden and Mrs. Brown, and even to give 
me a lift up the ladder of literature, for he accepted 
my first story, sent anonymously to the Social Gazette, 
a periodical read in his dear clerical parlor, where I 
first experienced the exhilarating thrill of hearing my 
own writings read to an appreciative circle. Mr. Pren- 
tiss said, " That is a capital story." I, the unknown 
author, sat burning in the background. My mother 
(O rapture !) applauded it. Dear woman, it was the 
only time ! 

When I got home I told her/ had written it. "Go 
to bed, my dear ; it was a very poor story indeed^'^ said 
she, sternly. 

My mother thought flattery of any kind was wicked, 
and so had the early teaching of her Puritan, Calvinis- 
tic parents steeled her tender heart that she allowed 
my youth to pass without a caress and without praise. 
The word love was never mentioned. I wonder we 
did not all grow up Shakeresses. In fact, the fault of 
all Kew England education was a certain hardness. 
Our minds were cultivated more than our hearts. 

There was a blue lookout for my dreamy shirking of 
the boundaries of Pennsylvania. Never, however, did so 
slight a fault lead to so useful a punishment. To go to 
Mr. Emerson's school, to be a " Boston girl " — even in 
name — was a vision of majesty. I determined that I 



12 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

would learn how to study, and after a fashion I did. 
Female education was at a very low ebb in what were 
called " Ladies' Schools " in those days. We learned to 
be ladies, I hope, for we certainly learned very little 
else. Had it not been for cultivated people about me — 
had it not been for my dear Keverend Mr. Livermore, I 
should have had most arid oases in my youthful mind. 
My parents were both too busy to criticise me ; there 
were younger children, always having the croup and 
the scarlet-fever. I often sat up all night, not reading 
Miss Edge worth, but holding in my arms a poor little 
struggling brother. Alas! I saw three of them die, 
and how deeply did I sympathize with my poor moth- 
er ! Perhaps this ploughshare of agony which went 
through my girlish heart kept me from being cold, in- 
different, merciless, thoughtless. I hope so, but I still 
believe praises and smiles and a little approbation would 
have made of me a more amiable character. 

My father and mother had followed that wave of 
TJnitarianism which was started by Channing and Mar- 
tineau, and all my ideas of religion were hopeful, inspir- 
ing, and beautiful. I never knew that horror of '' a jeal- 
ous God," which doctrine had been assiduously preached 
in 'New England just before I came on the scene, and 
which had gone far to fill the insane asylums. Indeed, 
one of my own schoolmates had gone raving in a relig- 
ious mania under my own eyes. But I can remember the 
soothing words of Mr. Livermore, who came in as I was 
holding one little dear, dying brother in my arms — 
how he took him from me and said, with such hopeful, 
peaceful assurance, that " death was swallowed up in 
victory." I never had a doubt. My God has always 
been a loving God. 

I wish I could repay here my indebtness to that ad- 



EAELY RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 13 

mirable, loving man, Abbot Livermore. He belonged to 
that ministerial family whom Dr. Bellows called " the 
Abbots with one tP 

Would that any convent had enjoyed such an abhot! 
Keene, under that Christ-like influence, and that of his 
follower, the Rev. William O. White, was a community 
to be envied. Spiritualism, Second- Adventism, and Mor- 
monism devastated our neighboring towns, but no such 
delusions troubled the peace of those congregations com- 
mitted to their charge — these enlightened men ; and they 
brought to us that wonderful body of thinkers, Waterston, 
Dr. Lowell, Dr. Parkman, James Freeman Clarke, Rev. 
C. A. Bartol, the saintly W. B. O. Peabody of Spring- 
field, Dr. Gannett, Dr. Bellows (destined to be one of the 
best friends of my later life) ; later on, Edward Everett 
Hale, several Channings, and Dr. Lothrop, the polished 
Wilberforce of the Unitarian Church. These men were 
scholars and eleo^ant men of the world. Dr. Huntino^- 
ton, now Bishop of Central E^ew York, was one of them, 
and, like him, man^^ of the Unitarians of that day be- 
came Episcopalians of this day. It was perhaps a halt- 
ing-place for the soul, freed from the terrible chains of 
Calvinism, upward and on to a more " reasonable faith." 
It needed, perhaps, for its ultimate development, the lib- 
eral creed and the wonderful prayer-book of the Epis- 
copal Church. 

Some letters written about this time have turned up 
in an old desk and have helped my recollections. As 
they may amuse the reader, I print them, mistakes and 
all: 

"Boston, Nov. 184—. 
"Dear Mother, — I am finding my place in Mr. Emerson's school. 
I thought I never should, and I cried three nights pretty hard. He 
made me take up the Latin grammar and learn it all by heart from be- 



14 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEKITY 

ginning to end. I recite sometimes to his daughter, Lucy Emerson, 
a very pretty girl, with the brightest eyes and little dancing black 
curls, but the sharpest thing you ever saw. She won't let me make 
a mistake, her eyes go right through me. I told Mr. Emerson 1 would 
rather recite to him or to Miss Monroe. He laughed and said he was 
glad Lucy was so correct, I think he and she mean to be kind — but 
oh ! duty and pleasure have to be kept seperate. I miss home and 

Keene very much, but Mrs. P is very kind and gives me rather 

too good a breakfast. I have to walk up a steep hill, and then go up 
four flights of stairs, and I suffer a pain in my chest after all that. I 
trust your tic doloureaux is better. 

"Ever your loving 

"M. E." 



{From my mother to me.) 
"Dear Maey Elizabeth, — Seperate is not correct. Separate 
would be nearer right. Are you not to study the English branches 
at Mr. Emerson's school ? I am sure I knew how to spell Separate at 
your age. Now, my dear child, exercise all your talents and all your 
principles. This is your first absence from home. Try -to lay the 
foundations of a useful character. Remember, life is not all play. I 
miss your sympathy, and sometimes think I have thrown my own sor- 
rows and cares on you too early. We are already counting the days 
until you come home at Christmas. 

" Your mother, 

"M. L. W." 



' ' Boston, Nov. 6. 
" Dear Mother, — I have bought my winter suit. It is of blue 
merino, with a spot of brown in it, like an autumn leaf, and a lovely blue 
silk cloak lined with a brown satin; a bonnet of blue, with Marabout 
feathers, and rosebuds — O, just the sweetest thing you ever saw! Will- 
iam says it is very becoming. I wore it all to Dr. Lowell's church last 
Sunday, and I could not help thinking of myself, all the time. There 
is a great pleasure in new clothes, isn't there ? Do you think we attend 
to clothes quite enough, at Keene ? Here the girls talk and think of 
them, a great deal. I fear I have spent too much money, nearl}'- one 
hundred dollars, since I left you, but I think I have got all I need get, 
for the winter. I am getting on pretty well at Mr. Emerson's, although 
it is as hard as a galley slave's life. I wish I could sit down and tell 

you all about C and M and Susan — nice girls all of them. M. P. 

sings as delightfully as ever, and is the belle of all our little parties. 



SCHOOL-GIRL LETTERS 15 

We go out to tea often. Father's friends treat me with a great deal of 
attention, and the Lawrences and Mrs. Page have asked me to tea. I 
am to see Washington Allston's picture to-morrow. 

" Ever your loving 

"M. E." 

"Keene, Dec. 
" My darling Daughter, — I hear you look very well in your new 
blue suit, and I think as you bought it all yourself, and not with my 
advice, you shall not be scolded for spending so much. We must 
try to make it do for two winters, but I am seriously sorry to hear you 
say you could not help thinking of yourself all church time ! Try on 
that sacred day to dismiss all thoughts of yourself and your clothes. 
It is one reason I wish you to be well-dressed so you shall not think 
of yourself, for I know it is mortifying to a young person to be ill- 
dressed, but I trust you will rise above clothes. Thank Mrs. P. for 
her great kindness to you, and do not eat hot cakes for breakfast. 
Dr. Tvvitchell says that is the cause of the pain in your chest. 
Your little sisters both have severe sore throats. Take care and not 
get one, in Boston. Bathe yourself freely in cold water, even if you 
have to break the ice in the pitcher. 

" Your Mother, 

"M. L. W." 



"Boston, Dec, 184—. 

"Dear Mother, — I have been taken to hear Miss Margaret Fuller 
talk. She received me very kindly. I found her a very plain woman 
with almost a hump back, but the moment she began to talk I found 
her most fascinating ; there was a sort of continuous long low stream 
of well-constructed sentences and that Boston pronunciation which 
you and I admire. She said: 'Talk about your friends' interests 
and not your own; always put the pronoun you for the pronoun / 
when you can.' (A lady near me pulled my skirt and said: 'She 
is a great egotist herself.') 'In Society to have unity one must 
have units, one cannot be unanimous alone.' She said: 'Never talk 
of your diseases, your domestics or your dresses.' She said: 'Think 
before you speak, and never speak unless you feel you cannot help 
speaking.' 

" ' But then I should never speak at all,' said S . 

"'Perhaps the world would be none the worse,' said she, rather 
cruelly, I thought. 

"She is cruel. The girls all came away frightened. One said that 



16 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

she had been at a concert with her a few days before, and that Mar- 
garet Fuller turned round and scolded them all for talking during 
the music ; but that was right, I think. They call her here ' the 
great, the intellectual Miss Fuller.' 

" I think these great people do not know how frightened girls are; 
they would not be so severe. My teacher, Mr. George B. Emerson, 
does not believe in her. I told him about my visit to her the next 
morning. He said: 'Learn to think, young lady, and the talk will 
come of itself.' 

"Mr. Emerson impresses me more and more every day. I see that 
he reads all our characters, and that, severe as he is, he does not mean 
to make machines of us ; he is a real chivalrous gentleman as well, 
and most respected in Boston. 

" I have been suffering again with that pain in the chest, on going up- 
stairs. O, I wish there were no such things as stairs or hills in this 
world ; but I am coming home for the Christmas holidays next week 
and that will cure me. Good-night, dear Mother. 

"M. E." 



"Boston, i^e&., 184—. 
"Dearest Mother,— I had a sad coming to Boston through the 
snow storm; the gentlemen inside the stage coach threw their shawls 
around me, and one took off his overshoes, and put them on my feet 
outside of my own thin boots. 

" ' This little girl will freeze to death, 'said he. 
' ' But I would not come inside, it makes me so deathly sea-sick as you 
know. I have been very ill, with sore throat, but got up my lessons 
all the same. 

" It is a pretty hard ride from Keene to Nashua, outside the coach 
when it snows. 

" Ever yours with love 

"M. E." 

Oh ! the dreariness of those stage-coach rides in win- 
ter ! It almost extinguishes the pleasure of the remem- 
brance of how perfect they were in summer, under the 
green boughs and the straggling sunbeams. I think 
I laid the foundations of a life -long rheumatism in 
those dreadful drives during the IS'ew Hampshire win- 
ters. 



WENTEE TRAVELLING FIFTY YEARS AGO 17 

This fragment of a letter — and there were many like 
it — shows what we endured before rapid transit was ac- 
complished. I have seen many inventions, the electric 
telegraph, postage-stamps, envelopes, chloroform, pho- 
tographs, sewing-machines, parlor matches, canning of 
fruit and vegetables, but none of them equal the 'parlor 
car and the rapidity of steam travel ; not even the steam 
furnace, which doubtless saves many a life in the cold 
E"orthern States. "When I remember that freezing child 
on the top of that dreary stage-coach with the ther- 
mometer at zero, I do not wonder that I have been a 
rheumatic all my later hfe. I only wonder that I lived 
a year. 

My health gave way between these exposures and 
Mr. Emerson's stairs, and my kind father came home 
from the West to see to me and to take me back with 
him. He had accepted from General Harrison's ad- 
ministration the office of Surveyor - General of Iowa, 
then much farther off from J^ew Hampshire than it 
now is. He had previously been made chairman of the 
great convention at Harrisburg which nominated Gen- 
eral Harrison in 1840, and had received from Leslie 
Coombs, of Kentucky, this compliment : 

" General Wilson, you were sent to ISTew Hampshire, 
but you were misdirected: you were meant for Ken- 
tucky." 

His great stature, his love of field sports, captivated 
the ardent soul of the Kentuckian, and I think my 
father had always sighed for a buffalo-hunt and a chase 
over the prairies. 

He took up his temporary official residence in Du- 
buque, Iowa, and I was to accompany him thither. My 
mother did not relish the idea of so long a journey, but 
to me it was like a flight into Paradise. We were to 



18 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

go to Washington first, then, as now, the Mecca of the 
American girl. 

"Washington, March, 184—. 

" Dearest Mother, — We were a week getting here, but I have en- 
joyed every hour. Father took me to tlie Astor House, New York, 
where we met the whole Whig party I should say ; Mr. Ashmun, Mr. 
Geo. T. Davis, and a sweet old gentleman, Judge Story. Mrs. Otis, 
and Mrs. Bates, were there and very nice to me. I went shopping, 
in a fine shop, and bought some gloves, and handkerchiefs, and some 
ribbons. The Astor House is very comfortable, and I saw all the 
fashion walk by. The Astor House parlor seems the centre of fash- 
ion. It is a very grand Hotel, and from the ladies who walk by in 
red velvet I get a picture of the great people of New York. 

" Just think, next Tuesday I shall be in Washington, not to see old 
Tippecanoe, but only "Tyler too." Father is very cross on that sub- 
ject. 

" Ever your loving 

"M. E." 

To go back a few months, my mother and I had gone 
through the campaign for " Tippecanoe and Tyler too " 
in emphatic fashion. We had accompanied my father, 
who was so favorite a " stump speaker " on the Whig 
side that wherever he went thousands of people and 
a military band accompanied us. 

We had had the honor of receiving Mr. Webster as 
our guest in Keene, and he had asked us to visit him 
at Marshfield, his famous country-seat on the sea. To 
proceed thither to see our great hero, accompanied by a 
brass band, was rather exciting for a girl of thirteen, 
and to be met by Mrs. Webster in her carriage (all in 
white, a fine-looking, dark-eyed woman) seemed to me 
to be very distinguished. My mother and a friend were 
placed in the seat of honor, and I was asked to mount 
the box in which Mr. Webster was driving himself. To 
say that I was frightened as those big black eyes swept 
me up is to state it mildly ; but I lived through it, and 



DANIEL WEBSTER AT MAESHFIELD 19 

since I was young and small I was allowed the seat 
next to Mr. Webster on the driver's box. How elated 
I felt as my tall father put me up there, and he whis- 
pered in my ear, "Eemember this, my daughter: you 
are to drive five miles with Daniel Webster as your 
coachman !" 

It was the most impressive and attractive thing about 
Mr. Webster that all his friends called him always 
"Daniel Webster." My coachman, who was dressed 
in a plain suit of gray, with a wide-awake hat and a 
loosely tied neckerchief of red, began immediately to 
make himself agreeable. 

" So this is your first visit to the sea, Miss Wilson ?" 
said he. 

I could have told him that he was the first person to 
address me as "Miss" Wilson. I was not old enough 
for titles then. 

And so he went on smiling and showing me his 
splendid teeth, which were as white and regular as a 
string of pearls, looking down on me with his great 
black eyes, which were fabulously handsome. He 
pointed out to me Seth Peterson, who was walking 
along the road, and who stopped to take some orders 
from his fellow-fisherman. 

"You will eat to-day some fish which Seth and I 
caught this morning," said Mr. Webster. 

I was frightened to death, but I made a lucky hit by 
asking what sort of fish were the easiest to catch. 

He launched off on his favorite subject, and told me 
of the gamey bass and the reluctant cod and so on; 
when I again said : 

" I suppose you enjoy the fish which are the hardest 
to catch, don't you, Mr. Webster ?" 

He looked round at me and laughed. " You are be- 



20 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEKITY 

ginning young, Miss Wilson," said he ; " that is the re- 
mark of a coquette." 

And at dinner he embarrassed me very much by re- 
peating this conversation as a piece of youthful precocity. 

Our drive was only too short, as we soon reached the 
long, low, pleasant white house known as Marshfield. 

Mrs. Webster — a Miss Le Roy by birth — had very dis- 
tinguished manners, and I felt awed as she received me 
every day with a lofty courtesy on the veranda. 

The house was full of company. Judge Warren, a 
famous wit, was there. Mr. Webster laughed at every- 
thing be said. A great Whig demonstration had just 
taken place, and one man had put the flag in a sheaf of 
wheat as his part of the procession. " He didn't want 
things to go against the grain," said Judge Warren. 

The dinner was profuse and excellent. Mr. Webster 
had dressed for it, and looked so grand in his blue coat 
and brass buttons that I was more and more afraid of 
him ; but he grew more and more kind. 

He offered a goose for the piece de resistance, and 
carved it himself with great deftness. He afterwards 
whispered to me that he was afraid it would not go 
round. 

Every day for a week he gave me the honor and 
pleasure of a drive, and every day the company changed. 
I liked him best in the mornings, when, with his soft hat 
on his head, he sat on the veranda with his dogs and his 
friends, talking, telling stories, and being the genial and 
magnetic host. 

He of all men next to l^apoleon deserved the title of 
magnetic. His powerful face, so often described, so 
characterized by Carlyle, Macaulay, and Sydney Smith, 
was capable of the most lustrous and winning and beau- 
tiful smile I can remember. Had Mr. Webster been, like 



DANIEL WEBSTER AT MARSHFIELD 21 

Charles James Fox^ a professional lady-killer, he would 
have won every woman in the land. But I never 
heard that he went into the business of flirtation 
at all. 

He could be as terrible as he was gentle, and we had 
a curious instance of his power. Mrs. Webster com- 
plained to him of the revolt of a kitchen-maid. " Send 
her to me," he said. 

The housekeeper told us that he simply looked at her, 
when she cried out, " Don't do that ! don't do that ! I 
will scrub the buttery !" 

It was like a lash on sensitive flesh to have his black 
eyes flash their lightning at one. 

Before I left Marshfield Mrs. Webster gave me a ring — 
a ruby circlet — which I wore for many years. Down in 
the West Indies, on my wedding journey, this ring was 
stolen from me, to my infinite sorrow ; but the memory 
of it, and of her kindness in giving it to me, I have never 
lost. 

One day Mr. Webster turned suddenly and asked me 
if I knew any of Watts's hymns ; to my regret I did 
not, when he quoted two or three, and also some lines 
of Walter Scott. He talked of Burns, Shakespeare, and 
Milton, and after dinner some lady sang one of Burns's 
songs. 

His daughter, Mrs. Sam Appleton Appleton, was stay- 
ing in the house, a very interesting woman, whom he 
much loved ; when he approached her he always kissed 
her hand, which amazed me, it was so stately. He told 
me much of his visit to England and of the delightful 
people he had met there, and often took me to drive, 
telling me about the sea grasses and the fish which he 
had caught in the morning. I can feel anew, as I write, 
the fragrant salt sea-breeze, forever refreshing that 



33 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

favored coast which outlined Marshfield, touchiog my 
youthful cheeks with its caressing fingers. 

Mr. Webster's dinners in Washington, in Louisburg 
Square, were well ordered and well served — more elabo- 
rate than those of Marshfield. A good ochra soup; a 
fish, fresh and admirably gotten up ; a turkey, roasted 
and basted as only Monica could do it ; oysters, scal- 
loped, fried, or broiled ; sometimes terrapin, and often 
ducks, are the dishes I remember. He had a way of 
talking about each dish, and I remember his comment- 
ing on a salt-codfish salad, as a " dish ' fit ' to eat." Then 
he went into a long discourse as to the meaning of the 
word " fit" — he knew his English very well. He laughed 
at the criticisms on his having said, " The nomination 
of Taylor was one not 'fit' to be made." 

As I remembered him at Marshfield, Mr. Webster's 
conversation Avas like a great organ playing, and his 
smile was grandly beautiful. I had listened with an 
affectionate reverence akin to awe, and when I left he 
gave me a Drummond's Botany^ with his valuable auto- 
graph : 

" To Miss Mary Elizabeth Wilson : 

"Taken from his own library at Marshfield for her, and offered by 
her friend, Danl. Webster." 

It is unnecessary to say that I have that book still. 

Thus my visit to Washington was to me chiefly valu- 
able that I might see Mr. Webster again. 

And at a Presidential levee I had that honor. He 
came in in full evening dress, very carefully groomed, 
his black hair brushed back from that extraordinary 
forehead ; he was the observed of all observers. When 
my turn came and my father mentioned modestly, 
" Here is my little girl," he took my hand in both of 



MRS. Webster's reception — charles dickens 23 

his and said, with a splendid smile, " What, my little 
woman who likes sea-weed !" 

The next day my father took me to Mrs. Webster's 
reception. The house of the Secretary of State was the 
great attraction ; it was full of brilliant company. Mrs. 
Webster's nieces and some other fashionable ladies from 
New York were there, many of the diplomatic circle, 
and a number of literary women — Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. 
Sigourney, of Hartford, our 'New England poetess, " that 
woman," as Judge Wayne said, " who will die guiltless 
of anything but a false quantity." I was more pleased 
with them than with any other part of the show, for I 
had already w^ritten Mrs. Sigourney a letter (anony- 
mously) admiring her poem, " On a Shred of Linen." 
How I wanted to ask her if she had ever received it, 
and whether she had enjoyed it ! but I remembered just 
in time that the character of the anonymous admirer 
forbade that. Suddenly there was a stir in the room, 
and all these ladies rose. 

A young Englishman, named Charles Dickens, entered 
the room. Then my heart stopped beating. 

I had read Pickwick and several of his novels, and, 
like all the world, I admired and wondered how a genius 
looked. I can see him now, overdressed, with billows 
of green-satin necktie, long hair, a rather handsome 
face, and hanging on his arm a pretty little fat, rosy- 
cheeked wife. 

I also remember (and I fear no one else does) what I 
wore on this momentous occasion : a black- velvet tight- 
fitting jacket with gold buttons down the front, and a 
skirt of deep blue, heavily flounced. I fear this fashion 
w^as stolen from Fanny Elssler, but the dress was " made 
in Boston." I saw that other ladies wore this tight 
jacket with tight sleeves, so I knew I was correct. We 



24 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

bad bonnets on, and I remember thinking that Mrs. 
Dickens's bonnet was dowdy. When we got into the 
carriage I said to my father, " Oh ! I am so glad that 
mother allowed me this pretty dress !" 

Whereupon he addressed me severely. " My daughter, 
I am sorry that after such an afternoon, when you have 
met so many distinguished people, you should be think- 
ing of your clothes." 

However, he was soon propitiated, and took me to 
the Senate Chamber next day, where I looked down on 
the great of the earth and saw Charles Dickens sitting 
in a seat near the Chairman. 

I remember Mr. Tyler, the President, as a man with a 
long nose and thin figure, but a courteous Virginia 
gentleman. It all made a great impression on me, par- 
ticularly Mr. Webster, who loomed up more and more 
splendid. I think I remember him (and my velvet 
jacket) best of all. 

Then we departed for a long, fatiguing journey from 
Harrisburg to Wheeling by stage-coach. Splendid scen- 
ery, but nothing decent to eat for three days and nights. 
I slept on my dear father's shoulder. He was so kind, 
so tender, so sweet to me, that I can never think of this 
journey without my e}' es getting a little moist ; for after 
we reached the Ohio River, all blushing with the red- 
bud along its banks, and got on the comfortable steam- 
boat, I found that he was ailing. He, however, did not 
allow me to be annoyed, and it was to me a cotillon 
party which lasted a week; for the colored waiters 
made a very good band, the saloon a nice ballroom, and 
we danced every evening. I remember being appalled 
by one very solemn partner, who led me off in a cotillon 
by the formidable remark, '' Dancing, madame, is a great 
solvent of discontent." 



ALONG THE OHIO AND DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI 25 

" Yes, sir," I said, not knowing what else to say. As 
I had never had any discontent, and did not very well 
remember what solvent meant, I was somewhat dis- 
couraged. However, the order came, " Ladies cross 
over," and I bounded off willingly. I learned after- 
wards that he was the governor of some Western State, 
and he made his peace by bringing me next day great 
bunches of the beautiful redbud from the shore. 

We paused often to take on freight and passengers 
at places which Dickens was afterwards to make im- 
mortal in Martin Chuzzlewit ; but although they did 
look rather forlorn, I never knew of the fact until long 
after. I suppose " dancing had been the solvent of my 
discontent," for I never was happier ; and I remember 
that Ohio Eiver steamboat, the good food, the music of 
that negro band, and the courtesy of the Western cap- 
tain with great delight. The Ohio is a magnificent 
river. The season was spring. I kept on making mis- 
takes, and blushing for fear that my father would call 
me " Mary Elizabeth," which was the beginning of a 
scolding; but I suppose the bloom of youth must have 
covered a multitude of sins, for I always seemed to come 
up smiling. In fact, "life was a joke which had just 
begun," and I had Pickwick and Oliver Twist to read. 
The guards of that boat, looking out on the moving pan- 
orama of the Ohio, was an ideal place to sit of a warm 
spring morning. I was travelling into the Unknown, 
and it was like the fabled stuff of Damascus — whichever 
way you turned it, it was scarlet and gold. 

Sorrow was not far off, for when we got to St. Louis 
my father broke down with a severe illness, and we were 
there three weeks in the house of a dear set of cousins, 
who saved his life. 

I saw things with sadly anxious eyes ; the city, now so 



26 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

great and then so small, St. Louis, full of French people 
and [N'orthern people and Southern people and negroes. 
It did not look as it does now. To my great horror and 
amazement, my cousins owned slaves, and their backyard 
was full of pickaninnies. I remember two great men — 
the Reverend Mr. Elliot, one of our Unitarian saints, 
and Mr. Holmes, now Professor of Law at Harvard, 
then a young lawyer, and the author of a book to prove 
that Shakespeare did not write Shahespeare ; also some 
pretty, very agreeable women ; but my heart was too 
heavy to allow me to notice much, and I was too young 
to be a philosophic observer. My father and I, after his 
recovery, started off up the Mississippi, that muddy, 
great, dark river, and I always felt the force of the sub- 
sequent witticism when the indignant Yankee answered 
the assuming Briton, "You could stir the whole of England 
into the Mississippi without making it a bit muddier." 

We had the same cotillon party and most interesting 
companions. I suppose " Elijah Pogram " or his proto- 
type was on board, but I do not remember him. Of all 
the ways of travel, I remember none which were so 
agreeable as these floating palaces, on which we lazily 
encompassed such vast distances. 

One day we stopped at J^auvoo, the first settlement of 
the Mormons. My father knew Joe Smith, their first 
Prophet. He had been a bricklayer at Keene, and had 
not laid his bricks even and well. He and a man from 
Peterboro, where my father was born, Jesse Little, I 
think, came down and invited us up to see their great 
temple, resting on the shoulders of carved wooden oxen. 
It was impressive, but the general effect was more like 
the Eden of Charles Dickens, which was yet to be de- 
scribed, than any other place I remember. They were 
already in trouble, and I think made their exodus the 



JOSEPH SMITH AND THE MOKMONS 27 

next year. But here I may be mistaken. I remember 
hearing then the romantic stor}^, now denied, that they 
had found Mr. Spaulding's book by accident, and made 
it their Bible. 

This was perhaps the most small beginning of what 
has proved, after Mahomet, the most extraordinary sto- 
ry in the whole world of religious fanaticism and the 
one-man 'power. Even the Massanielo frenzy pales be- 
fore it. At any rate, to have seen this their beginning 
is interesting now by the light of subsequent events. It 
is not the man who starts well in the race of whom we 
make a hero, but he who reaches the goal and ends 
well. These queer and dirty and disreputable Mormons 
became the most successful of colonists in their xio,"^ 
home beyond the Eockies. They redeemed the dry 
land by irrigation, as the Moors enriched sandy Spain ; 
and their religious tenets, absurd and abhorrent to the 
rest of us, have for them a power and a strong hold 
which would put to shame many a Protestant church. 

I see it still, that ragged, dirty, uneven shore of the 
great Mississippi, the lazy steamboat-landing, the pigs of 
lead being discharged or loaded on — I forget which. The 
story used to run that the Mormons always dropped two 
or three in the river by accident, but fished them up 
and appropriated them afterwards. They had a bad 
name, but, unlike the dog, it did not hang them. The 
Mormons were destined to live down a great deal of 
bad name. I suppose that great wooden temple and the 
carved oxen had been built by some of their foreign 
converts who had a knowledge of wood-carving. 

Joe Smith, the then head of the Church, the bad 
bricklayer, had "builded better than he knew," or, as 
they used to say in Keene, when I told them this 
story, " better than he knew how when he was here." 



CHAPTER II 

Visit to Dubuque and the Wisconsin Prairies — A Steamboat Trip 
through the Great Lakes with Mr. Van Buren and J. K. Paul- 
ding — Chicago and Mayor Ogden — James Russell Lowell and 
Maria White — A Visit to the "Experiment" at Brook Farm 
— Mr. Ripley, Mr. Curtis, Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller, 

It would astonish the good citizens of Dubuque, 
Iowa, of to-day if I should tell them what a small, 
pretty village theirs was when I first saw it; how 
immense prairies filled with wild flowers stretched back 
from the great bluff (I suppose that is there still) which 
defends their State of Iowa from the rolling Mississippi, 
and what a little row of houses clustered under the hill. 
Beyond on the prairies lived some of our friends, who 
were early settlers. We used to go out for a day and a 
night, and had some log-cabin experiences not always 
pleasant. 

One of our friends, a Philadelphia gentleman, had 
married a fair-haired wife, and they were " roughing it 
on the plains." Among their live-stock was a fawn, 
the most beautiful creature possible. I loved and pet- 
ted this gentle animal, and was shocked when one day 
I was asked to come out and eat him. 

He had grown troublesome, I suppose. This was bad 
enough, but, what was worse, he was shot before my 
eyes after I got there, and I saw the dying look in 
his splendid eyes. This effectually spoiled the effect of 
the venison for me ; as sad a story, I thought, as that of 



VISIT TO DUBUQUE AND THE WISCONSIN PRAIRIES 29 

the " Falcon." Tennyson should have immortalized that 
fawn. And my friends were not, like the master of the 
falcon, driven to killing the fawn by poverty, for their 
fields were full of sheep, and their coops overladen 
with turkeys and geese, while the prairie swarmed with 
the famous grouse, brown as a berry. 

I had some very tragic experiences at this log-cabin of 
my friends. Once, in my bed, I looked up at the logs 
at the head, and through the crevices I saw a black snake 
wriggling his dreadful head. It was a good reminder to 
rise early and often. After this I determined never to 
undertake frontier life. There were many dreary hours 
in spite of the romance in this visit to the then extreme 
West; but my father was Surveyor-General of Iowa 
under the Whig administration, and he had to be there. 
Perpetually driving over the great prairies on his busi- 
ness, he often took me, and I really have seen more of 
the unbroken and beautiful ocean of grass, ornamented 
and gemmed with wild flowers, than many a frontiers- 
man. We made a journey once of three days to Madi- 
son, Wisconsin, that pretty town of four fine lakes. We 
were the guests of Governor and Mrs. Doty, and I re- 
member the house was so full that the rooms were par- 
titioned with sheets. We slept on the way at log-cabins 
of settlers as we drove along ; and once our little carriage, 
with my absurdly big trunk in front, nearly tipped into 
a stream we were fording. My father's great form was 
in the stream instantly, and he held us all up out of the 
water — carriage, trunk, and daughter. Fortunately, we 
had to drive in a burning sun for two hours, so he got 
thoroughly dried. The sorrowful prairie wives and 
mothers, mostly emigrants from I^ew England, used to 
move my soul to pity in this journey. They all had the 
ague, were taking care of a crying baby, and yet found 



30 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEKITY 

time to cook the prairie-chickens which my father had 
shot on the wsij. Some of them, seeing my sympathy, 
Tvould talk to me far into the night, teUing me a mourn- 
ful story. I used to drive away with my ejes full of 
tears. Three days going and three days coming back 
over this endless caw^pagna, and a subsequent drive to 
Milwaukee to take the steamer thence for home, satisfied 
me with a knowledge of the State of Wisconsin as it 
then was. But it had a charm (in common with the 
Campagna at Rome) like the sea, and it gave me many 
romantic dreams when I returned to the well-regulated 
and comfortable life of New England. 

The life on horseback which I led at Dubuque and 
these drives re-established my health, and I had no more 
pains in my chest. Our journey home through the great 
lakes was even more delightful than that up the Ohio 
and Mississippi. The steamboats w^ere models of com- 
fort, and the same cotillon party, lasting a fortnight, 
went on every evening. As I was the youngest person 
on board, I had no end of partners, and there were two 
most eligible elderly beaux to talk to of mornings. 

These were the Hon. Martin Yan Buren, ex-President, 
and his friend, James K. Paulding, Avho had been one 
of his cabinet. This latter gentleman, well known 
to the literary world, was very indignant at the at- 
tentions which were then being showered on Dickens, 
"a mere London newspaper reporter," as he used to 
say. One age must, however, gracefully retire before 
another. 

Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Paulding were charming gen- 
tlemen and the best and kindest of friends. Mr. Yan 
Buren was especially courtly — a little, natty man, with 
his head on one side and the air of being fresh from the 
barber. I used to tell his witty son, John Yan Buren, 



CHICAGO AND MAYOR OGDEN 31 

of this steamboat flirtation afterwards, after I had grown 
older and was married. 

" Oh, he always had good taste," said the ready 
" Prince John," who should have written his own me- 
moirs. 

We stopped at a little, mean, muddy town known as 
Chicago. The mayor, William B. Ogden, came down 
to the boat and drove us up to a beautiful villa in the 
heart of the town. It was surrounded by trees and 
quite redeemed the otherwise barren outlook. That site 
is now so covered with bricks and mortar that I have 
never even attempted to identify it during my subsequent 
visits to that magnificent town. There he was laying 
the foundations of the great fortune which is now en- 
joyed by his descendants; there he built an undying 
memorial of himself — the man of energy, accomplish- 
ments, and a kind heart. 

I saw Xiagara on my way home, and nearly tumbled 
off Table Kock. We went up there in a mist, and I got 
very wet. I remember my father was so angry with me 
that he would not speak to me all the way to Albany. 
I sat shivering in my wet garments, and quivering with 
a sense of injustice, for it had not been my fault at all 
that Niagara was wet. 

But when I was taken in the night with a chill, fol- 
lowed by a fever, he forgave. In a few days we were 
at home, and my mother was taking care of me and 
looking over my stained and spoiled dresses. I was 
thought to be ready for a very stern governess, who 
proceeded to wring out of me all ideas of superiority, 
airs of having seen the world, and visions of past joy. 
I went throuo^h all that New E norland could do to im- 
press me with the idea that I was a miserable sinner. 

Had it not been for books I should wish to forget 



32 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

some of these subsequent years ; but I would keep one 
most pleasant memory, that of seeing Mr. Lowell and 
his lovely Maria White. O the blessed damozel ! I 
went to Watertown to visit her sisters, the Misses White, 
and there I found this pretty idyl of a love affair go- 
ing on. 

The Whites lived in a grand house, of limitless ca- 
pacity, at Watertown. This house seemed ever to be 
full, for each sister had a friend staying with her ; and 
although there were five sisters at home, yet there was 
always room for one more. I remember that the beau- 
tiful, dark -eyed Misses Gilman, the daughters of the 
poetess Caroline Gilman, and the reverend doctor, their 
father, were there, and visitors for lunch and tea were 
always arriving. And here for the first time I saw that 
extraordinary genius, William Henry Hurlbert. 

But I had eyes only for Maria, the blue-eyed beauty, 
the genius, with eyes lighted from behind and the smile 
which seemed to illumine the earth ! She was a jpre- 
destinee. Consumption had even then marked her for 
its own, and although she lived fourteen years after 
that she always walked with death at her side. Per- 
haps a certain unearthly quality of her beauty was 
owing to the influence of this malady, which is known 
to cast a radiance over its victims. But Maria White 
had no appearance then of an invalid. Her skin was 
beautifully fair, with no hectic in the cheeks, no color 
save the red of her lips ; her hair, which was very pro- 
fuse and worn in bandeaux over the ears, was a rich 
auburn brown, and her eyes very light blue, with long 
lashes ; her teeth were a feature by themselves, so white, 
so perfect, and so regular, a set of graduated pearls. 
She was not a large woman nor a small one, rather 
slender than otherwise, perfectly graceful and well- 



JAMES KUSSELL LOWELL AND MARIA WHITE 33 

made. The expression of the face was rapt, spiritual, 
poetic. I never saw such eyes. 

Perhaps she saw with pleasure the admiration which 
she inspired in my youthful heart, for she was very kind 
to me, and showed me her work, smiling. She did 
fancy-work beautifully (japanning, I believe, it is called), 
painting flowers in gold-leaf on a black ground. She 
used to ornament tables, clocks, desks, chairs, and other 
pieces in this manner with exquisite taste. I saw on 
her table a box, which looked like a great Bible, and 
it had painted on it, by her, these words : 

" THE GOLDEN LEGEND 

"Here lies within this goldeu legend fair 
Of love and life the noble mystery. 
Life sullies not its lily pages fair, 
Death writes no Finis to its history." 

" These are James's letters," she said, giving me one 
of her rare smiles. She always smiled when she spoke 
of him. 

I saw much of this courtship, destined one day to 
be the property of the world, from the distinction which 
both lovers won by their talents. 

All courtships are beautiful, or should be. This one 
had every element of beauty. Mr. Lowell was singu- 
larly handsome in his young manhood. Paige painted 
him when he was a Titian young man with reddish 
beard and affluent curling hair, deep-blue eyes, and a 
ruddy cheek. Afterwards, when he was Minister to 
England, I spoke to him of that portrait and those 
days. " You see," said he, " I didn't grow old hand- 
somely." l^or did he. The trials of his life, and they 
were many, had marked his face and marred his color- 



34 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

ing ; but it made no difference how he looked, he was 
always the same delightful, witty, and distinguished 
man. 

Together the lovers might have played Romeo and 
Juliet, Francesca da Eimini and Paolo, or indeed any- 
thing Italian and romantic. I visited them at their 
home at Elmwood afterwards, and they drove me to 
Mount Auburn, hearing that I had never seen it. Onh^ 
the other day, after many years, I went to lay a rose 
on their graves. 

Mr. Lowell was very fond of telling stories, of writing 
funny verses ; and once after his sister and m3^self re- 
turned from a journey to Lake Superior, bringing with 
us some moss -agates and the account of a gentleman 
named Moss, he burst out with an impromptu supposed 
to have been written by that gentleman : 

"Together once we chanced to cross 
Ontario's inland sea. 
What wonder that a lonely Moss 
A lichen took to thee ! 

"And as our boat went pitch and toss, 
Thou on my arm wouldst lean ; 
Forgive my hopes ! how could a moss 
Be otherwise than green ? 

"And if again our paths should cross, 
Thou there wilt surely see 
All withered hang a lonely Moss 
Dependent from a tree!" 

I do not think the lovely Maria had so much love of 
humor as her lover husband ; their sympathy was rather 
on the poetic and humanitarian side. She was an ear- 
nest abolitionist, and drew him over to work and feel 
with her. They spent the first year of their married 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL AND HIS WIFE 35 

life in Philadelphia, in deference to her delicate lungs. 
They lived with a Quaker family named Lamborn,and 
from Dr. Lamborn, their son, I heard many details later 
on of that year of happiness. James delighted to see 
Maria dress in the Quaker garb, which was becoming to 
her, and used to surprise the Quaker circle invited to 
tea by entering suddenly and kissing the demure Quaker 
sister — a joke which never failed to delight Mrs. Lam- 
born. 

I did not see Mrs. Lowell after the death of her chil- 
dren, or when disease had made its ravages ; so I retain, 
as few people can, a memory of that transcendent love- 
liness of her youth. Of Mr. Lowell I continued to see a 
great deal, and after her death he sent me a volume of 
her poems, and her portrait (from one by Paige). He 
also asked to see several letters she had written to me 
after the death of her children, when he was calling at 
my house in Xew York. I left him alone with them in 
my parlor, and he took his leave without bidding me 
adieu. He afterwards wrote me one of his choice let- 
ters, thanking me, and adding, " Which was most beauti- 
ful, her body or her soul ?" He often dined with me in 
iS'ew York, bringing with him the rarefied air of Cam- 
bridge, and of all the recent good things said by Charles 
Norton, Agassiz, Holmes, James T. Fields, John Holmes, 
and the lUuminati generall}^. 

What a society of wits and scholars that was! I 
remember, in my visits to Boston, meeting them all, at 
dinners, teas, at the opera and theatre. Imagine the 
sensation of having Mr. Prescott come and talk to one 
at the opera ! 

My father took my mother, myself, and Miss Lois 
White (the heroine of the moss-agate poem) up to Lake 
Superior in the summer of one of the late forties. We saw 



36 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEKITY 

the great copper-mines, the wonders of that inland sea; 
we saw Mackinac, most romantic of islands; we went to 
Dubuque, and already it had begun to grow. I have 
never seen the Mississippi since, nor Mackinac, nor the 
great lakes, excepting to glance across the one at 
St. Louis and ISTew Orleans and to feel the breezes of 
Lake Michigan at Chicago ; but I pay my parting tribute 
to the old steamboat way of crossing them. It was 
transcendent. I should like to make those journe^^s again. 

In one of my visits to Boston, it may have been in the 
spring of 1847, 1 w^as taken out to see Brook Farm, that 
experiment of Fourierism which led perhaps to the writ- 
ing of the Blithedale Romance. 

I knew very little of the writings of Fourier, or his 
romantic economic scheme that men and women were 
so perfect that they could all live together under one 
common roof, or in phalanxes, dividing the labor, and en- 
joying in groups of fifty or one hundred one common 
fire which should cook the common dinner. " Why 
must a man and a woman be shut up in cages which 
they call homes, each wasting extravagantly fire and 
food ?" was one of the favorite remarks of the Fourier- 
ites. 

A few Transcendentalists, with Eeverend George Eip- 
ley at their head, were making the first experiment out 
at West Roxbury, in a wooden house, which, as I saw it, 
was painfully crowded. Mr. William White, a brother- 
in-law of Mr. Lowell, and his sisters, were so good as to 
take me there to tea ; and although I have forgotten 
much else, I shall always remember that intellectual 
group in the long, low, crowded room, one hot evening 
in July. The lady who received us did so while hastily 
pulling down her sleevps, explaining that she had been 
in the " washing group." 



BROOK FARM 37 

Mr. Frank Shaw was furnishing them the money to 
build their new Phalanstery, -which, when completed, 
burned down, and Mr. Shaw never got his money back. 
We met his beautiful wife as we n eared the "experi- 
ment," and she asked us to her house to tea. We were 
sorry afterwards that we had not accepted, for the whole 
menage, I regret to remember, seemed very wanting in 
cleanliness and care. 

George William and Burrill Curtis were conspicuous 
there, in blue blouses, like French workmen. Mr. 
Ripley, who sat at the head of the table, talked su- 
premely well. He was a most striking figure, and every 
one was so intellectual and superior that one wished, 
had it been less warm and more fragrant, to stay there. 
Mr. Ripley, w^ho afterwards became a xery dear friend 
of mine in ISTew York society, often spoke of that glimpse 
of mine at what had been to him a painful disappoint- 
ment. He told me how badly some characters " panned 
out," how many illusions he lost. " It all went up in 
smoke," he said ; and yet the theory seemed most plau- 
sible. 

Margaret Fuller, who had always struck me as a very 
plain woman, was the oracle. She had a very long neck, 
w^hich Dr. Holmes described " as either being swan-like 
or suggesting the great ophidian who betrayed our 
Mother Eve." She had a habit of craning her head for- 
ward as if her hearing were defective ; but she had a 
set of woman -worshippers who said that the flowers 
faded when she did not appear. 

She was the Aspasia of this great council. She seemed 
to have a special relationship to each of the intellectual 
men about her, discerning and reading them better than 
they did themselves. Some one said of her that she was 
a kind of spiritual fortune-teller, and that her eyes were 



38 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

at times visible in the dark. Their devotion to her was 
akin to fanaticism, and they would talk of the magic 
play of her voice as the singing of a fountain. She had 
a very kind way to the colored stage-driver, who was the 
Mr. Weller of Concord, and he distinguished her by his 
respect. The "chambermaid would confide to her her 
homely romance." The better cjass of young Cam- 
bridge students believed in her as though she had been 
a learned professor. Her all -seeing eye could shoot 
through the problems which engaged them. Many 
distinguished men kept this opinion of her to their 
deaths. With such w^onderful imagination and a gen- 
ius like that of George Eliot, there was much that was 
morbid and unhealthy and strange in Margaret Fuller. 
She was a victim of dreadful headaches all her life, but 
she said that " pain acted like a girdle to her powers," 
and between laughing and crying she would utter her 
most witty words. 

There was a singular mixture of faculties in this gifted 
woman. She was fully conscious of the male intellect 
in which w^as incarnate her truly sensitive feminine 
heart. She had a tendency to dally with stories of spells 
and charms, and really thought she had (if she turned 
her head one side) the power of second-sight. - 

This is not my own description. I have compiled it 
from the words of others, for I did not see much of her 
or know her well enough to have written so pow^erful an 
elucidation. She wrote these lines on herself, but ad- 
dressed to the moon : 

"But if I steadfast gaze upon thy face 
A human secret, like my own, I trace ; 
For through the woman's smile looks the male eye" 

Her wonderful eloquence and electric spirit gave to 



BROOK FARM 39 

her conversations an impressiveness and influence which 
cannot be inferred from the records kept of them. 

They were not always free from the ludicrous, and the 
daily papers made fun of her. Everybody bad a mot as 
to what Emerson said and what Margaret said, and it is 
fair to observe that, although Emerson was the brain 
and Margaret the blood, the two spoke a great deal 
of nonsense. Certainly after the epoch of social recon- 
struction failed, and when Margaret left them. Transcen- 
dentalism broke to pieces, like a cosmical ring, each piece 
flying off to revolve in its own orbit. 

I can only remember how much she was talked about 
all my youth, and sometimes laughed at. Zenobia, Haw- 
thorne's beautiful dream, supposed to somewhat embody 
Margaret Fuller, has embalmed her and put her in the 
world's picture-gallery forever. 

I ought to have seen Hawthorne at Brook Farm, but 
I did not. I have to accept George William Curtis's 
splendid description of him : 

" A statue of Night and Silence, gazing imperturbably 
upon the group ; and as he sat in the shadow, his dark 
hair and eyes and suit of sable made him in that so- 
ciety like the black thread of mystery which he weaves 
into his stories." 

This, contrasted with the cheerful and human pict- 
ure of Hawthorne written lately (1896) by his daugh- 
ter, Mrs. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, makes Hawthorne 
two such different men that we can only solve the 
problem by quoting Goethe's mother : " When my son 
has a grief he makes a poem of it, and so gets rid 
of it." 

When Hawthorne had a sombre mystery he made a 
story out of it, and so got rid of it, possibly. We are 
very grateful to him for confiding his mysteries to us — 



40 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

that man of immense genius, that prince of all the 
romance writers who use our English speech, for his 
mastery of language was unique, and also his exquisite 
grace of comedy, which appears in his English Notes. 

" The hunger of an age is alike a presentiment and 
a pledge of its own supply." The demand for wom- 
an's emancipation of thought, her breadth of freedom of 
action, met with its first great interpreter in Margaret 
Fuller : she fed that first hunger. 

From the glimmer of twilight's solitude through which 
Hawthorne's shrewd and curious eye dissected the 
movements of the human heart, Margaret Fuller might 
have seemed to be like Zenobia, but I did not think it a 
portrait. 

The terribly tragic end of that life, which was so 
noble, generous, and helpful, has placed Margaret Fuller 
above criticism, and one only wishes that to his sombre 
studies Hawthorne might have added that shipwreckedj 
faithful woman holding her child to her breast. His 
exquisitely delicate genius, refined away almost to gos- 
samer, would then have encased them both in a web of 
alabaster like that which was found in the rooms of the 
Borgias. 



CHAPTER III 

"Washington in the Forties — General Franklin Pierce — The Mexican 
War — John Quincy Adams, Lincoln, Calhoun, Benton, and Clay 
—A Sight for Northern " Doughfaces " — The 7th -of -March 
Speech — Chester Harding — Two Stories of Webster — President 
Tyler's Inauguration — State Balls and Dinners — The Society of 
the Capital Half a Century Ago. 

The life in New England was a studious one, but not 
gay, although the irrepressible spirit of sixteen got some 
dancing out of it. The vision of Washington to come was 
a not ungrateful one, and, although I have referred to it 
before, I may be allowed to speak for a moment of the 
political situation which obtained when I exchanged 
iSTew England for Washington. My father had always 
been very kind and familiar in his talks with his chil- 
dren about politics as well as everything else. I had 
hated General Jackson as a child, as the Scotch children 
hated the Bruce ; and although I had seen with my own 
eyes that Mr. Yan Buren was not an ogre, I had still a 
very poor opinion of his character. A girl brought up 
in the old Whig party had no idea which favored " Loco- 
focos," as the Democrats were called. Antislavery agi- 
tation at the ]^orth was growing more intense every 
day. We had gone through the Mexican war. I knew 
by heart the name of every hero in it ; we were waiting 
to know now what was to become of the territory won 
by that war. Our friend and neighbor General Franklin 
Pierce, although my father's political foe, was a very 
agreeable guest at our dinner-table. He had gone to the 



42 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

war, and it had made him President ; although, poor 
man ! he would have been better off without that dis- 
tinction. As we look back upon it now, we see that 
the time held the '' irrepressible conflict " (the " im- 
mortal march " of Eoger A. Pry or) in the rude Wilmot 
Proviso, the Compromise Kesolutions, etc. ; and I re- 
member John Quincy Adams in the House of Eepre- 
sentatives, with his noble old head, battling for the 
North. Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster were " compromis- 
ing," as were most of the J^orthern Whigs. It was in- 
tensely exciting, and rather mortifying to JiNTortherners. 

Mr. Lincoln, then obscure but for his great height, 
was towering physicall}^ above everybody, as he was 
later on to tower mentally and morally above us all ; 
but no one suspected his greatness then. 

John Wentworth, of Chicago, six feet seven ; Caleb 
Cushing, and George Ashmun, with his bright black 
eyes burning with genius, his fine, shining bald head, 
were among those who were on the floor of the House. 
I have forgotten many of the others, but these were 
the days when I knew the House of Eepresentatives 
very well and heard many good speeches. 

Mr. Winthrop, prince of Speakers, was in the chair. 
General Scott, fresh from triumphs in Mexico, walked 
about outside. I once saw him, Mr. Lincoln, John 
Wentworth, and my father talking together in the 
lobby, and my father, who was six feet four, was the 
shortest of the quartet. 

In the Senate, Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Benton, Mr. Clay, and 
Mr. Berrian made that scene notable. Rufus Choate 
was in the Senate in the John Tyler days, a very fervid 
orator and man of genius. Later on Mr. Polk was in 
the White House surrounded by an army of Southern 
sympathizers. This was in 1847. 



A SCENE IN WASHINGTON 43 

As one fine spring day we were looking from our win- 
dows in Four-and-a-Half Street we saw a great commo- 
tion and outcry. It was the most heart-breaking scene 
I have ever witnessed. 

It was a cargo of runaway slaves who had been 
caught in Chesapeake Bay trying to get away from 
cruel masters. They had been becalmed, and so capt- 
ured. Their fate was to be taken to Northern or to 
Washington jails, and then to be whipped and sent 
back again. The captain of the little craft which had 
essayed to save them was being carried up to the jail in 
a carriage, guarded by soldiers, else the citizens of Wash- 
ington would have murdered him, so strongl}^ Southern 
was the feeling there. I remember one poor negro 
mother with a baby in her arms, and two or three picka- 
ninnies hanging to her skirts, being whipped along with 
the rest. Her face with its hopeless agony is before me 
to-day, a greater picture than that of the Cenci. 

What a sight that was for a JSTorthern girl to see ! 
Mr. Ashmun stood at my side, and as he w^atched the 
impotent tears fall down my cheeks he said : 

"God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonders to perform." 

And yet, after all that, we had to hear our idol, Mr. 
Webster, make the 7th-of-March speech. 

I have never been able to decide whether it was be- 
cause his great and well-informed mind saw the other 
side so clearly that it could not see the right side, 
or whether it was because he so much desired to be 
President, that he on that occasion advocated com- 
promise and temporizing. It killed him, this Fabian 
policy. Had he taken strongly the J^orthern view, the 
view which Abraham Lincoln took, ''^ Do right — and 



44 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

sleep^^ he would have been the next President, and the 
Avar would have been averted, for it would have been 
unnecessar}^ 

My little part in that great day, the 7th of March, 
was this : Ladies were to be admitted on the floor of 
the Senate, and my father got me the seat of General 
Greene, of Ehode Island, very near Mr. Webster. The 
venerable and beautiful Mrs. Madison and Mrs. Web- 
ster sat not far off, while everybody of distinction in 
Washington and crowds from Boston and New York 
were present. Mr. Webster rose, dressed in buff and 
blue, the colors of Fox, which he always wore on great 
occasions — a dress-coat buttoned across the waist over 
a yellow vest — his great face serious, splendid ; his cav- 
ernous eyes glowing with fire, his hair carefully brushed 
back from his majestic forehead. 

Surely " no one could be so great as he looked." He 
had not proceeded far when Mr. Calhoun jumped to his. 
feet, making some objection to what he said. " The 
gentleman from South Carolina and I have broken a 
lance before this," said Mr. Webster. " I have no de- 
sire to do so again," said Mr. Calhoun, '' but — " etc. 

Mr. Calhoun was dying ; in fact, he died on the 30th 
of the month. His face was spectral, and his, stiff gray 
hair, which he brushed upward, gave a peculiar expres- 
sion to his very marked appearance. This 7th of March 
was his last appearance in the Senate. He made on 
that occasion his most remarkable prophecy : " Sir, the 
Union can be broken." But neither of these great men 
knew that it not only could be and would be broken, 
but that it could be cemented together again, alas ! by 
a mingling of the best blood on both sides — a cement 
which, please God ! shall hold it through the ages. It 
seems now impossible that the great logical mind of Mr. 



THE SEVENTH- 0F-:MAECH SPEECH 45 

Webster should have forgotten an impressive phrase 
from Lord Bacon which he had quoted in his famous 
letter to the " Citizens on the Kennebec River" : 

" Among the maxims left us by Lord Bacon, one is, 
that when seditions or discontents arise in the state the 
part of wisdom is to remove, by all means possible, the 
causes. The surest way to prevent discontents, if the 
times will bear it," he says, " is to take away the 'matter 
of them ; for if there be fuel prepared it is hard to tell 
whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire." 

Slavery was that cause which should then and there 
have been removed. 

But these great topics are beyond the meaning and 
the purpose of these rambling recollections. A young 
girl listening to a giant was not thinking of the past or 
the future ; she was probably very much more interested 
in her own present. 

But she was conscious of a great thud of disappoint- 
ment, and was very angry when a beau of the period, 
Mr. Cabell, of Virginia, said to her : " Less than that 
concession of Mr. Webster would have dissolved the 
Union." Many years after in St. Louis, having suffered 
extensively from the evils of secession, Mr. Cabell talked 
to me in a very different strain. 

Of the great we of the lesser type have a right to 
cherish all memories, however trivial ; it therefore is to 
me, who saw this great man when I was a child, and af- 
terwards when I was a young woman, a great pleasure 
to recall his smile, his careful dress, his commanding 
beauty, and his unvarying kindness. My memories of 
him in the Senate and in society are not less vivid and 
delightful than of the days at Marshfield. I saw him 
in the Capitol as he was sitting to Healy for one of his 
best portraits. He seemed perfect, and I ceased to ques- 



46 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

tion, as we should all do, what strain of human imperfec- 
tion it was that clouded this celebrated life ; why he was 
not more successful in the minor matters of every day ; 
why he did not see more clearly what others thought 
to be the right ; why there was one thread of logic that 
he did not find and follow — and so we should all cease 
to question. To-day I know no greater pleasure than 
to read his letters and his speeches. 

Speaking of portraits of Mr. Webster, the earliest one, 
by Chester Harding (that man of genius who used to 
make Gilbert Stuart jealous, as his young fame in 1823 
made the older man ask, " How rages the Harding 
fever?"), is, I think, in the Boston Athenaeum. They 
are all good. I sat to Harding in my girlhood. He used 
to talk to me of Webster as of a man whom he really 
worshipped. He had a thorough comprehension of his 
subject, for he was a great man himself. He enjoyed 
for many years an enviable intimacy with Mr. Webster 
and his family, and he said, " The more unrestrained our 
intercourse grew the greater man he seemed to be." 
He was fond of telling of his taking a bottle of " moun- 
tain-dew " to Mr. Webster. Leaving the bottle on the 
hall table, he went in to the parlor and said, "I have left 
a Scotch gentleman of my acquaintance outside ; may I 
bring him in?" On receiving a ready assent he produced 
the bottle (he had previously told Mr. Webster that this 
beverage must be taken with hot water and sugar). 

"Oh," said Mr. Webster, receiving the bottle with 
gravity, "is this the gentleman who always bathes in 
hot water ?" 

Chester Harding was born in 1792, in J^orth Conway, 
ISTew Hampshire ; he died in Boston in 1866, having 
painted nearly every one of note in that city. His fame 
grew to be a national one, and his last portrait was that 



CHESTER HARDING — TWO STORIES OF WEBSTER 47 

of General Sherman, painted in 1866. He had been in 
England, and had studied under Leslie and Sir Thomas 
Lawrence. He painted portraits of his Royal Highness 
the Duke of Sussex, the Duke of Hamilton, the Duke 
of T^orfolk, Allison the historian, and Samuel Rogers. 
He al\va3^s held a high social position wherever he went. 
He was a grand -looking man, and in his old age, with 
a white beard, he sat to an artist for a head of St. Peter. 
A characteristic of his portraits was their suggestive- 
ness of temperament and character. But in the ^ne 
lines which I^ature draws upon the living face the 
artist should be inspired to read that half -hidden hand- 
writing. In this Chester Harding excelled, and there- 
fore his pictures of Webster are valuable. His conver- 
sation was always rare and instructive, and never more 
agreeable than when he talked of Mr. Webster. 

I remember one anecdote of Mr. Webster's immense 
personal charm told me by Mr. W. W. Story, of Rome. 

" James Lowell and I," said he, " were very angry 
with Webster for staying in old Tyler's cabinet, and as 
he was to speak in Faneuil Hall on the evening of the 
30th of September, 1842, we determined to go in and 
hoot at him and to show him that he had incurred our 
displeasure. There were three thousand people there, and 
we felt sure they would hoot with us, young as we were. 

" But we reckoned without our host. Mr. Webster, 
beautifully dressed, stepped calmly forward. His great 
eyes looked, as I shall always think, straight at me. I 
pulled off my hat ; James pulled off his. We both be- 
came cold as ice and respectful as Indian coolies. I saw 
James turn pale ; he said I was livid. And when the 
great creature began that most beautiful exordium our 
scorn turned to deepest admiration, from abject contempt 
to belief and approbation." 



48 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Mr. Webster talked one evening of his past, the past 
of the "Reply to Hayne." He told us how Mrs. Gales 
had saved it for him, as she could read her husband's 
shorthand, which no one else could. I remember that 
Miss Susan Benton was of this party — a very gifted 
girl, and the daughter of the great Missouri Senator. 
Mr. Seward often joined us in our after-dinner walks 
to the Capitol. These twilight strolls to these beau- 
tiful grounds were very fashionable then. "We dined 
at ^VG o'clock, and had a long summer evening to 
get rid of. How primitive Washington was in those 
days ! But what good society this was during the long- 
session ! 

A small, straggling city, with very muddy streets in 
winter ; plain living and high thinking ; rather uncom- 
fortable quarters in the hotels and boarding-houses; 
here and! there a grand house, but not many of them ; 
the White House, serene and squalid ; a few large pub- 
lic buildings ; the Capitol, with its splendid dome, like 
an architect's dream, overhanging and dominating the 
scene, as it does to-day, one of the most splendid public 
buildings in the civilized world. Such was the early 
Washington to me. 

I came to Washington as a very young girl, and was, 
of course, dazzled. I have only indistinct memories as 
to having seen the last years of Mr. Polk's administra- 
tion and the first of General Taylor's. That was my first 
inauguration, and I remember it very well. What a cold, 
driving March day it was ! What dreary waiting in a 
crowded part of the rotunda and the Supreme Court 
room ! We had two friends — Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut, 
and Mr. Justice Wayne, of the Supreme Court — to put 
us through, and so we had very good chances. I re- 
member now the impressive group as Judge Taney ad- 



PRESIDENT TAYLOR'S INAUGURATION BALL 49 

ministered the oath to the sturdy little general. Judge 
Taney looked like the recently deceased Cardinal Man- 
ning. 

But the ball ! That was the great expectation. We 
went with ten thousand others to a sort of shed — a 
large wooden barracks — and spermaceti rained down on 
our bare shoulders in a white snow-storm. One of our 
gentlemen attendants, looking at his coat, said : " Sper- 
maceti is very expensive. I have paid ten dollars for 
less than a pound." However, we enjoyed the crowd, 
the dance, and the novelty. Had the grippe been the 
fashion I should have died then and there, and you would 
have been spared these rambling recollections. But we 
never seemed to take cold in those days. Washington 
was cold and dreary in winter then ; the houses were 
insufficiently heated, the hotels abominable. 

The belles of that ball — how differently they were 
dressed from those of to-day ! Falling ringlets, or the 
hair in bandeaux put under the ears ; a low-cut gown 
with a berthe across the shoulders ; a plain skirt or one 
with two lace flounces ; a rose or a bow in front of the 
corsage ; perhaps a pearl necklace ; white kid gloves but- 
toning at the wrist with one button. 

A few ladies wore white feathers. I think Mrs. Bliss, 
the delightful daughter of President Taylor, wore a red 
velvet dress and one long feather in her hair. She was al- 
ways lovely and well apparelled. Yery few ladies wore 
jewelry. I remember Madame Bodisco was famous then 
with a Russian head-dress full of diamonds. The wife 
of the English Minister, Lady Bulwer, wore handsome 
diamonds, but American women had not then adopted 
coronets. Nor was there anything like the display so 
common now of handsome jewelry. The young girls 
were very simply dressed, excepting some from Louis- 



50 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

ville and 'New Orleans. Great beauties, like Sallie Ward 
and Diana Bullitt, would be famously dressed, but they 
were the exceptions. Being a Northerner, an abolition- 
ist, and a "Whig, it was certain that my dearest friends 
should be Southern girls and Democrats. We never 
talked politics, but wondered that we liked each other 
so much. I adored them — these beautiful women with 
soft voices and gentle eyes who had been brought up so 
differently from what I had been. They were accus- 
tomed to be waited on ; had had a dozen slaves about 
them all their lives, while I had been taught in cold New 
England to wait on myself. But we met on the common 
ground of youth and love of pleasure. I used to admire 
their pretty Southern accent and try to imitate it. They 
did not so much admire mine, and told me I spoke too 
fiercely. We differed, too, on the subject of engage- 
ments. 

" Why, Miss Wilson," said one of these dear sirens, 
"I'd just as lief be engaged to five men at once, and then 
I'd pick out the best man at last and just marry him." 

I gave her, I dare say, a Puritan lecture on constancy, 
at which she laughed. Oh, such a musical laugh ! Her 
brother was one of my beaux, and she said to me : 

" Now, Miss Wilson, you needn't marry Preston, be- 
cause you're a wicked abolitionist; but you just get 
engaged to him and come down to Georgia and pay us 
a visit." 

It was through the friendship of one of these dear 
Southern friends that I was smuggled in to a dinner at 
Mrs. Polk's, just before she left the White House. I re- 
member how very long it seemed and how dreary — state 
dinners at sixteen are dreary. The dinner was a very 
elegant one, and I can now see Mrs. Ashley's plumes 
across the table. Mrs. Ashley was a very handsome 



SOCIETY OF THE CAPITAL HALF A CENTURY AGO 51 

widow with a very handsome daughter, Miss Wilcox. 
Mrs. Ashley was afterwards the wife of the Hon. J. J. 
Crittenden. She was a most amiable woman, who al- 
ways called every man colonel or general. (" Always 
give men brevet rank," she said to me, confidentially. 
" If they are colonels call them general ; if they are 
captains call them colonel. They will forgive you.") 
Mrs. Ashley could say a sharp thing when occasion re- 
quired. She once said to me that a certain lady, who 
had always been very jealous of her, had bought of her 
a French invoice, a toilette, which she, going into mourn- 
ing, could not wear. This other woman sent back the 
slippers after having worn them, saying, " They are too 
big. I could swim in them." Mrs. Ashley took them 
calmly, and looking at them remarked, " My dear, I am 
a larger woman than you are in every respect." 

The President's " levees," as we used to call them, 
were very much smaller than to-day, but they were very 
like them. I always wonder what we did for light in 
those dsijs, as oil lamps, always smoky, and candles, al- 
ways dripping, are all that these splendid affairs had to 
use in place of the diamond brilliancy of to-day. I once 
went up-stairs in the White House to search for a pair 
of overshoes, and I remember there was one candle in 
that immense hall. I can see now that feeble glimmer. 

Mr. Corcoran gave fine dinners; so did the English 
and French ministers ; but elsewhere I do not remember 
anything like the luxury of to-day. Indeed, it did not 
exist, and those who could afford it did not care for it. 
John Quincy Adams, whose magnificent head was the 
pride of the House, whose fame made him our first 
citizen, who was a rich man, lived plainly in rather a 
Southern fashion. It was a great treat to be permitted 
to see Mrs. Adams, who had been, as Mr. Everett told 



53 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

me, one of the most admirable hostesses of the White 
House — her conversation was charming. It was the 
fashion to be poor in Washington in those days, and I 
remember the witty Henry A. AYise, who had just then 
published his clever book, Los Gringos^ when he became 
engaged to the brilliant Miss Charlotte Everett, sajing 
to his fellow-officers : " Don't be afraid. She is so un- 
lucky as to have some money, but she is a good fellow 
for all that." What a witty man he was, and how much 
we enjoyed the suppers at the Mays', of which he was a 
factor ! 

Then there were quiet literary parties at Mrs. Frank 
Taylor's, where we met a very remarkable man, Mr. 
George Wood, who wrote Feter Schlemihl ; or. The Man 
without a Shadow. Mr. Wood used to take us to see Mr. 
King's pictures, and he introduced us to charming, quiet 
people, who were the citizens of Washington, mostly 
Southern by descent, and those ladies would sit in plain 
black silks and dark gloves to receive their guests. It 
was a splendid distinction then, as now, to be asked to the 
White House to dine, and it was one we looked forward 
to once a winter ; but dinners were too long and heavy, 
and the drinking of healths, now so happily abolished, 
w^as a nuisance, at least we young ladies thought so. 

Mr. Seward was in the Senate, a youngish man, very 
witty and very delightful. His great fame vras ahead 
of him, but we of New York, the Whigs, were very proud 
of him. His head resembled that of Julius Caesar on 
the coins. 

On [N'ew- Year's Day we went first to the White House 
and then to call on the cabinet, and sometimes to 
Arlington to call on Mr. Custis. That was a great chap- 
ter out of history to see for the first time his historical 
pictures, and to be asked by his lovely and amiable wife 



SOCIETY OF THE CAPITAL HALF A CENTUKY AGO 53 

to drink tea out of the Washington china. Later on I 
used to go there in the spring over that old Long Bridge, 
now happily replaced with iron. It looked as if it would 
break down, even with our one old hack, then. 

The wild roses, the woods of Arlington, even that 
neglected tangle of a garden, were a delight to me, and 
Mrs. Lee used to encourage my love for the pink bonsa- 
line rosebuds which blossomed all winter. Indeed, I re- 
member that once at JS'ew- Year's Day I plucked these 
roses in the city garden of Mrs. Seaton, and when I was 
there later, in a snow-storm, I wondered if the once soft, 
Southern climate of Washington was one of the vanished 
pleasures of youth, like a good appetite and a love of 
balls. Washington is a garden of delight in spring. I 
think Proserpine sets her blessed foot here earlier and 
more charmingly than anywhere else ; but even in win- 
ter she used to throw us out a rose or two. 

Such were some of the pleasures of the early Wash- 
ington, the greatest of which was to hear the talking. 
A very grand set of talkers were those men. Mr. Cal- 
houn was a most elegant conversationalist; he talked 
literature, social events, and even gossip, pleasantly. 
All that severe and almost iron logic of his speeches 
melted away, and he rattled on gayly ; he liked to talk 
to ladies. Mr. Berrian was another finished talker when 
conversation was an art. Mr. Clay, the ugliest man in 
the world, was one of the most fascinating. He could 
have said with Wilkes, " Give me one hour's start and I 
will captivate any woman before the handsomest man 
in England." He was very gallant, and could make the 
dullest dinner go off bravely. How near he came to 
being President, and how wofully disappointed were 
he and his friends ! Mr. Webster, however, talked better 
than any of them, to ladies or to anybody. 



54 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

It was a highly exciting, agreeable, improving life for a 
New Hampshire girl. We saw Mr. Webster every day, 
often dined with him, and spent a winter at the National 
Hotel, dining usually at a "mess" with Mr. Clay. I 
saw General Taylor inaugurated, and during the v/inter 
of his short reign saw much of Mrs. Bliss at the White 
House. She made a charming hostess. We went very 
often to the House and Senate in those days. Can it be 
possible that the little room now devoted to statuary, 
with its beautiful clock, was once that immense space ? 
The modern Capitol confuses me. I feel at home no- 
where except in the rotunda. Those stiff old pictures 
seem like real friends — something to take hold of — in 
that magnificent bazaar of politics. The library, then 
much smaller than now, was a great lounging-place and 
the arena of flirtation. 

A wary, witty old gentleman. General Greene, of 
Providence, and General Waddy Thompson, of South 
Carolina — tliey were our watchdogs. They took turns 
in mounting guard ; and if there was a fascinating lieu- 
tenant in the navy or a wandering officer from the plains 
whom we wanted to meet in the library they used to 
try and frustrate us. But we were equal to the emer- 
gency, and I think we saw our dark-eyed lieutenants. 

Mr. Benton — striking figure, with his high nose and 
his recollections — was a near neighbor of ours in Four- 
and-a-Half Street. His brilliant daughter, Mrs. Fremont, 
had already run away with her lieutenant, whom she so 
adored all her life. Susan Benton was a most brilliant 
woman, whom I saw afterwards in her pleasant life as 
the wife of a French minister, but destined to close that 
life under the most cruel of misfortunes. Annie Wilcox, 
the beauty, became Mrs. Cabell, and died. " All, all are 
gone, the old familiar faces." I went to my first grand 



SOCIETY OF THE CAPITAL HALF A CENTURY AGO 55 

ball at Mrs. Carroll's, her beautiful fair daughters being 
the ornaments of the scene. 

Here came General Scott ; in those days he was grandly 
the hero of the Mexican war. Here I saw many of the 
young heroes destined later on to be world-renowned — 
Admiral Farragut and Rogers, young, handsome, and 
stately ; General Lee, a magnificent man ; Zachary Tay- 
lor, Colonel Bliss, and a little quiet man who shrank out 
of sight — he was known later on as U. S. Grant ; Frank- 
lin and McClellan, fresh from Mexico, and a thousand 
others whose later fame has made their early day seem 
dim. 

Mr. Robert C. Winthrop was a prominent figure. He 
was Speaker of the House, and much admired for his ad- 
mirable justice and presence of mind, his fairness to his 
political opponents, his fine temper, and his ready wit. 
He was, like the Earl of Clarendon, a man with a bal- 
ance of the qualities, none of them overweighing the 
other. Mr. Winthrop was an hereditary gentleman, a 
man of fortune, entertained hospitably, and was of infi- 
nite service in the House when passions ran high. 

Washington was seething then with the question of 
abolition and "Korth and South." The South was very 
much to the front in social as in political matters. The 
women were beautiful, full of all the accomplishments, 
and knowing how to entertain. The men, like Mr. 
Berrian, were scholars and most admirable talkers. 
Perhaps we young girls, in the flippancy of youth, 
found some of them rather verbose, rather sesquipe- 
dalian, quoting Pope more than Longfellow, and some- 
times the elderly ones would attempt an elephantine 
flirtation. We preferred the foreign attaches and the 
young oflScers of the army and navy, and I do still. 
But we had our General Dix, most accomplished of 



56 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

men — he who, for his pleasure, translated the Dies Irce, 
and who, bless his heart ! wrote that immortal line, bet- 
ter than poetry, " If any man hauls down the Amer- 
ican flag, shoot him on the spot." We could brag of 
Mr. Winthrop, who, one Southerner told me, w^as the 
only Northern gentleman he ever saw! And at his 
house could be seen some lovely Boston girls. Among 
the Southern ladies I particularly remember the beau- 
tiful Mrs. Yulee, a soft Creole brunette with exquisite 
manners. She was, before her marriage, Miss Wickhffe, 
of Kentucky, but she had the air of a Louisiana w^oman. 

Mr. Morse — Professor Morse — was there, trying to get 
an appropriation for a new invention, the electric tele- 
graph. I heard the first click that went through, either 
to Baltimore or New York, I forget which. Just im- 
agine it ! The year 1850 was a transition era. The old 
w^as going out, the new was coming in. The looker-on 
little knew of its importance. It is now to me like 
those mosaics at Ravenna which mark the Pagan and 
the Christian epoch as they separated. 

As I have visited the city often since to partake of 
its elegant festivities, to drive out to the Soldiers' Home 
through palaces and flowering trees, did I ever regret 
that old Washington ? 

Yes. It is impossible not to regret the plain begin- 
nings and the sincere patriotism, the poor little homes 
which held such noble lives ; and I can safely affirm that 
anything so delightful as Washington I have never seen 
elsewhere. There were a mingled simplicity and gran- 
deur, a mingled state and quiet intimacy, a brilliancy 
of conversation — the proud prominence of intellect over 
material prosperity which does not exist in any other 
city of the Union. I believe it does not exist anywhere 
but at Rome, which always, geographically as well as 



SOCIETY OF THE CAPITAL HALF A CENTURY AGO 57 

politically and socially, reminded me so of Washington 
that I used to call Eome Washington inadvertently. As 
I was driving with Mrs. Story to the Pincian Hill, I 
would say, " Is he in Washington ?" meaning Kome. 
She said I was not the first one who had felt it. Eome, 
like Washington, is small enough, quiet enough, for 
strong personal intimacies ; Rome, like Washington, 
has its democratic court and its entourage of diplomatic 
circle ; Rome, like Washington, gives you plenty of 
time and plenty of sunlight. In New York we have 
annihilated both. 

So my early Washington recollections became crystal- 
lized. Cameo-like, they stand out clear and distinct. 
I see again that great straggling outline so little filled 
up, a collection of houses here and there, and then 
great empty spaces. I see, in my mind's eye, the Capi- 
tol and the White House, and the distant view of 
Arlington and Georgetown, almost a distant city. For 
a picnic on a June afternoon we would drive through 
deserted lanes to Kalorama, now, I believe, in the middle 
of the city. Then we had always a delightful treat 
in visiting Brentwood, at that time kept up with true 
Southern hospitality; Silver Springs, most beautiful; 
and to Mrs. Gales's pretty cottage. My visits to the 
Custis and Lee families at ArHngton were frequent and 
delightful. It was a consecrated place then, as now; 
but then there was not between us and General Wash- 
ington the unhappy blood-red gash of civil war. I re- 
gret that it was made a graveyard, that beautiful home. 



CHAPTER IV 

Early Simplicity in Dress and Manners— My Wedding-dress and my 
Marriage — A Novel Wedding Trip — St. Thomas and Santa Cruz 
— A Celebrated Lawsuit and a Unique Christmas Festival— Ha- 
vana — Rachel, the famous French actress, visited the United 
States in 1854 — Fanny Kemble — Thackeray's Visit to America 
— The Purchase and Restoration of Mount Vernon. 

In the early forties and fifties almost everybody 
'' had about enough to live on," and young ladies dressed 
well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of 
the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous 
plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, 
which did service for several years. Display was con- 
sidered vulgar. Now, alas ! only Queen Victoria dares 
to go shabby; fine clothes have become a necessity 
to the lesser lights. The greater proportion of people 
were happier, because there was not such emulation, 
such vulgar striving, nor such soaring, foolish ambitions. 
Then men and women fell back on their own minds for 
that entertainment which they now seek in fast horses, 
yachts, great and constant change, journeys to Europe 
and to Newport. Books took the place of dress and dis- 
play. When a young lady was introduced into society 
one bouquet did duty for the seventy-five which now 
are considered quite too few. There was a sober ele- 
gance among even the first in position and the richest 
in pocket. There was no talk about money ; it has be- 
come a subject of conversation since the Avar. 

I was fortunate in being born in that hour of grace 



MY WEDDING-DEESS 59 

and brighter things which followed the gloomy Cal- 
vinistic period. Several years before I began to observe 
things Keverend Lyman Beecher had been preaching 
violently against Unitarianism, but about Boston that 
gentler faith had permitted the young people to dance 
and to enjoy life. Therefore I cannot say that I suffered 
from any Puritan narrowness, although I heard the 
echoes of it. The Puritan virtues of economy, plain 
living, and high thinking were everywhere; yet there 
were balls and dinners and drives and picnics, and 
robust pleasure at Thanksgiving and at Christmas. 
Tinctured by the memories of youth, it seems to me to 
have been a happy and healthful resting-place between 
the rehgious gloom which had preceded it and the 
dreadful sorrows of the war of secession which followed. 
In those early days the dress of New England girls 
was simple and inexpensive, often white in summer and 
dark merino in winter, and perhaps one silk dress for 
great occasions. But there was one dress which was 
always handsome, and that was the wedding-dress. 
Perhaps for that reason, or a better one, I wrote the 
following letter to a friend : 

''Nov. 11, 185— 
"Dear L., — I am to be married to-morrow, and have just been re- 
hearsing the ceremony in the front parlor in my wedding-dress. It 
is a beauty, made with a low waist, pointed before and in the back, 
where it is laced ; a deep Brussels lace berthe trims the neck. The 
sleeves are short and tight, the skirt very full and plaited into a belt. 
It is made of white moire antique, so stiff it would stand alone. I 
have a wreath of orange blossoms, with long, flowing garlands at 
the back, and a white tulle veil, cut like a cloak, with a point of lace 
a la Marie Stuart coming down to the forehead. This is very becom- 
ing. White satin slippers and white gloves. My two bridesmaids have 
deep-pink flounced grenadine dresses over pink silk, with garlands of 
pink acacias, which make Annie look like a dream. Mr. Sherwood has 
a deep-mulberry dress-coat with steel buttons, and a white silk vest; it 



60 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

is very handsome. I hope the gentlemen will keep to this fashion. 
[This was a fashion introduced by the Prince Consort, and it was very 
handsome, but it did not last long ; the gloomy clawhammer soon dis- 
placed it. It was attempted again in 1870, but was blotted out.] 
Bishop Chase, of New Hampshire, is to perform the ceremony, and is 
here to-night with us, as are Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood, Mary Bostwick, 
Mary Sherwood, and David Colden Murray, Robert Sherwood, and 
Thaddeus Lane. Our house is full, and Roxana and her assistants are 
in great feather getting up feasts. "We are to be married at twelve 
o'clock, and at two leave for Mount Vernon and New York via 
Springfield. And perhaps we shall reach the Mammoth Cave. 

" For our real wedding journey, however, John will take me to the 
West Indies, where he has an important lawsuit to take care of. Is 
not that a most original, delightful programme ? Who ever went to 
the West Indies before on a bridal tour ? We hope you will come to 
our wedding reception in New York. It will be on December 1, just 
before we sail. Etc., etc. 

"Ever thine, M. E." 

A light fall of snow through which the sun' shone 
lighted up the morning hour. Dr. Ingersoll, a dear and 
witty friend, said, " Nature has paid you the prettiest 
of compliments ; she has put on a wedding- veil." 

We went on the 8th of December to Bermuda by a 
little propeller which was the most uncomfortable craft 
I ever have sailed on. It was called the Merlin, but 
had left all enchantment behind. The smell of the gal- 
ley came aft, freighted with the odor of roasted onions. 
On board were many residents of those islands going 
home after a summer in the States, and with one of them 
we formed a friendship destined to have a most benefi- 
cial result on our winter's residence in Santa Cruz. This 
was the Keverend Mr. Hawley, the rector of the church 
at Bassin, who asked us to share his house there, as the 
hotel was most primitive, and we did so gladly, later on. 

Bermuda is beautiful, with its turquoise waters, its 
oleander-trees, its white cottages of stone with yellow 
roofs, and its swell English regiment, its lilies, and 



A NOVEL WEDDING TKIP 61 

boundless waters, " the still vexed Bermoothes." Since 
those days it has become a fashionable watering-place, 
w^ith grand hotels. Then it had but one little boarding- 
house, where we got a respectable dinner. 

But its beauty is its own ; it was always unique. The 
one day's experience and a drive to St. George was all 
that was allowed us, and we were soon at sea again. 

The planters and their families proved very agreeable 
travelling companions, although they all talked ruin. 
They were principally from the Danish islands, St. 
Thomas and Santa Cruz, and were never tired of telhng 
how the Danish governor, Yan Scholten, had issued an 
edict freeing the slaves, and had then sailed off to Den- 
mark in time to escape the riot, the bloodshed, and the 
confusion of his act. " In fact," said my infuriated in- 
formant, "you will see plenty of ruin. England has neg- 
lected and ruined Jamaica, revolution and bad govern- 
ment have ruined Hayti, emancipation and Denmark 
have ruined Santa Cruz, and Spain has ruined Cuba," 
and so on, and so on. 

" But you still have flowers ?" I asked. 

" Oh yes, plenty of flowers, and we can give you a 
good dinner and show you a few of Thorwaldsen's 
statues. And you will see neglected fields, tumble- 
down properties, looking-glasses cracked and boarded 
up, windows broken, etc. Losing our slave labor, we 
are all poor, poor, poor," etc., etc., ad infinitum. 

When we reached the picturesque harbor of St. 
Thomas, and, looking up a steep mountain like Vesuvius, 
saw the little town of Charlotte Amalie hanofino: in air, 
with palaces and flowering trees everywhere, we were 
so delighted that I lost all sense of ruin. My gloomy 
planter, coming up in a suit of white duck, was more 
cheerful, and watched for his little schooner, which was 



63 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

to take him to Santa Cruz, twenty miles away. We were 
to go to the hotel and spend a week in St. Thomas be- 
fore we sailed over to Santa Cruz. 

A famously good French table we found, and the het- 
erogeneous company of all the islands joined in this ho- 
tel, which from its piazza commanded a splendid view. 
The thermometer stood at 88°, although it was Decem- 
ber. Near us at dinner sat Father Ambrosius, a most 
celebrated Catholic priest, who had been on the Merlin. 
Father Ambrosius had been suflSciently human to talk 
to the young bride of subjects in which she then took a 
decided interest, and perhaps does yet. 

Amid those tropical seas and lustrous stars and those 
soft breezes, on whose wings fly delicate love fancies 
and tender dreams, the old monk had talked to us of the 
Proven 9al poetry, of Petrarch, of Clemence Isaure and 
the violet, of old Spanish romance, and of modern 
French romance and poetry. He had all Petrarch's son* 
nets at his tongue's end. ]^[o two young married lovers 
had ever a better companion. Even at the dinner he 
proved himself a gourmet, was a capital judge of wines, 
and told us what to eat and what to avoid ; he even 
told us who people were — such as the old sun-dried bank- 
er, the Danish Councillor Feddustal, the Danish beauty 
Miss Stridiron, etc. After dinner he sat out with us on 
the balcony, looking at the unlimited reach of ocean 
and the calm, splendid, brilliantly illuminated heaven. 
Yenus seemed to hang down by an invisible thread, and 
she caused the palm-trees to cast a visible shadow ; she 
glowed with such pale, intense fire in that clear air that 
the earth was filled with her radiance. He knew his 
classics as well as his breviary ; he knew even human 
nature ; he knew literature ; he had taste and intelli- 
gence — in fact, we always wished that we could have 



MY FIRST WEST INDIA DINNER 63 

taken Father Ambrosius, brown capuchin, rope round the 
waist, shaved head and all, along with us through life. 

The next day, at his suggestion, we had mounted two 
little Spanish jennets and rode up the Sugar-loaf to see 
more of the view. I believe nothing finer exists than 
this sudden elevation out of the blue sea, St. Thomas, W. I. 

On the following day we were asked to dine with the 
old banker, to whom my husband had brought letters of 
credit, and to whom was consigned a verj^ large sum of 
money which was to settle the claims of one Anna Ma- 
ria Sparks to the estate in San Francisco owned by her 
son, one Leidesdorf, and bought by one Captain Folsom. 
I shall have more to say of this romantic story later 
on. As it was, I picture myself dressed in an India 
muslin and going down to my first West India dinner. 
The change from the propeller was delightful. The ther- 
mometer was up among the nineties, and yet the English- 
men present were in the orthodox black coat and trousers, 
and the two American officers were sweltering in their 
fine naval uniforms and stiff embroidered collars (one of 
them, who was very fat, said in my ear, with a good- 
natured smile, " You know how uniforms shrink "). The 
Americans present were in white-duck pantaloons and 
black dress-coats, the only ones who dared to differ from 
the English regard for les convenances (and 1 am not sure 
they were much cooler). Several ladies were present, and 
the dinner was admirable — a well-seasoned soup, a fish 
called the barracouta, an excellent entree^ a pair of guinea- 
fowls, roast mutton, a salad of green peppers and toma- 
toes, well dressed; and, what was more important to the 
gentlemen, good old Madeira which had travelled far, 
Tinto which was fresh from Spain, clarets as good as 
when they first left France, and Burgundy a trifle better. 

After the dinner was finished our host, the banker, 



64 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

arose and, stretching out his hand to me, said, ^' Welhe- 
homerP This custom went around the table. It seems 
it is a Danish word signifying " Welcome," " Your good 
health," "May your dinner agree with you." 

I retired with the Danish ladies, all of whom spoke 
English, and I asked them how they spent their lives. 

" Oh, we rise earl}^, go out on horseback, come back, 
take a siesta, and dress for an eleven-o'clock breakfast, 
then lounge and read or do embroidery ; then we lunch 
at two, take another siesta, drive at five, to get the ocean 
breeze, and dine at eight — a busy, uninteresting, sleepy 
life," said Miss Sigenbrod, a pale Danish beauty. But 
she sat down at the piano and played with great vigor. 
The Danes, men and women, are consummate musicians 
— a great resource in that sleepy island. The gentlemen 
finally got through with their cigars, wine-and-water, 
Peter Herring brandy, and cordials, and came in to join 
us. Our host, hospitable to the last, offered us ladies 
aerated waters, as we did not take the heavier drinks ; 
but what would I not have given for one glass of ice- 
water! — a luxury I was not destined to taste in three 
months, for all the cooling which drinking-water gets 
in these remote islands is to hang it in a porous jar 
in the breeze, which I thought made it more tepid and 
more tasteless than before. But I could talk of my 
ride on a Spanish jennet, a pacing pony which is nearer 
to being a rocking-chair than any horseback motion I 
have ever tried. I^o carriages would be of service on 
that sugar-loaf which St. Thomas is, so we did all our 
sight-seeing from the ponies' backs. 

'' Well, how did you enjoy your dinner?" asked my 
husband, as we regained our own rooms in the hotel. 

" Oh, immensely !" said I. " I should like to live here 
forever." 



A WEST INDIAN RESIDENCP] 65 

I have been glad since that he was not of my opinion. 

We left on a little schooner for Santa Cruz in a 
week. It was a short sail and uneventful. Our friend 
the Keverend Mr. Hawley received us at the wharf 
with his carriage in waiting, drove us to his house, 
and gave us afternoon tea on a shaded veranda which 
looked into a garden. And afterwards we sauntered 
down long avenues which were thickly shaded by 
polished -leaved orange- trees, the Olea fragrans, and 
the innumerable blooming trees of this famed island. 
These alleys radiated in fan shape from the house. 
Along one, lovely scarlet pendent blossoms lighted up 
the green ; in another, yellow tassels hung gracefully ; in 
another, pink blossoms blushed. Down another alley 
white flowers gleamed like stars ; the banana, the pine- 
apple, the orange, the guava, the lemon, all planted at 
intervals ; and over the pretty shaded portico hung the 
passion-flower vine, heavy with symbolic blossoms and 
its fruit, the queer pear-shaped papaw. 

I could not express my ecstatic delight; nor was this 
delight ever satiated. Never, except in Italy, have I 
seen anything more lovely. Miss Ballin, a colored house- 
keeper, of excellent manners, showed me to my room, and 
I found no glass windows — there is not a pane of glass 
in Santa Cruz ; a bed with one linen sheet over the hard 
mattress, a pillow, a mosquito-net, two chairs, a dressing- 
table, and a wash-stand, voild tout ! Seeing me look as- 
kance at the bed, she said, " If madame should wish anoth- 
er sheet I will give her a square of mosquito-netting." 

And that was all I had during six weeks. It was all 
I needed ; but the great trouble was to get a bath-tub 
and enough water. 

The mosquitoes troubled me when I sat on the ve- 
randa, so I soon got to pass ray days in a long, low, beau- 

5 



66 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

tiful room down-stairs, which had a marble floor and was 
carefully mosquito-netted against the enemy. I found 
that silk stockings and low slippers must be abandoned 
and thick boots substituted, else these ferocious biters 
would eat me up. I got to like Miss Ballin's dinners, 
heavily freighted with red pepper though they were ; 
they were savory, and a certain pastry called guava- 
berry tart was highly appreciated. 

" Christmas will come day after to-morrow," said Mr. 
Hawley, one evening, " and I wish to appropriate Mrs. 
Sherwood's day." He told us that we were to dine 
with him at Mrs. Abbot's, where we should see the true 
elegance and hospitality of the island. Mrs. Abbot had 
been twice married, her first husband having been Cap- 
tain Blakeley, of our navy, of distinguished fame. His 
daughter had been a ward of the United States, and 
after her mother's second marriage she had com.e to 
these islands, married, and had died. Mrs. Abbot had, 
however, other sons and daughters, and with her broth- 
ers and sisters, was rather the queen of Bassin. 

" But first I wish you to go with me to early church, 
and see me administer the communion to eight hundred 
negroes," said this dear, good, faithful rector. This ex- 
cellent man had me called at six, and I went with him 
through the glory of the tropical morning, through the 
churchyard filled with the works of Thorwaldsen. The 
little grave of one little child had been marked by a 
butterfly, and this work of Thorwaldsen's skilful fingers 
was doubly beautiful, in that the damp sea air had fret- 
ted the wrings of the butterfly until they were diapha- 
nous. We came to the church, already half filled with 
the black women in their w^hite turbans and gowns, 
the black men decently dressed for church, all stand- 
ing awaiting that blessed hospitality which had said 



CHRISTMAS-DAY IN THE TROPICS 67 

to them as to us, "Eat, drink, in remembrance of 
Me." 

The clerk introduced them all to the clergyman, say- 
ing, " Diana and Caesar, estate Diamond and Rub}^ *' ; 
" Clio and Manuel, estate Mon Bijou," before they took 
the cup. This was necessary, as Mr. Hawley could not 
remember them all. 

That was the only thing which remained to remind 
one that they had so recently been chattels. 

It was a long service, that of Christmas-day, for at 
eleven o'clock arrived the planters and their families, 
many of whom kindly called on us afterwards at the 
rectory. Among those was Mr. Randolph, an English- 
man, who asked us to dine with him at Mon Bijou, his 
pretty place seven miles away. My husband went off 
with him to call on the governor and some of the otlier 
dignitaries, and on old Judge Feddersen, who held the 
fort for Anna Maria Sparks in the Captain Folsom case. 

I was very glad to retreat to the mosquito-net and the 
one linen sheet and to fan myself into a siesta. I rose at 
seven reluctantly to dress, and at eight o'clock we drove 
to Mrs. Abbot's, where we found a large party. Mrs. 
Abbot was a lady of high degree ; her manners had the 
majesty of a past age. Councillor Feddustal, a very 
distinguished person, stood near her. The governor and 
his wife, evidently people of the world ; Miss Sigenbrod, 
Misses Stridiron, Miss Feddersen, Danish beauties ; Miss 
Abbot, a gentle blonde, and some fine-looking old gen- 
tlemen in uniforms, made up a distinguished party of 
twenty -four people. 

There seemed to be a white-haired negro behind each 
chair. The long table was illuminated with wax-candles 
in tall glass globes which defended their flickering light 
from the insects and from draughts. The table was 



68 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

loaded with flowers and most delicious fruits, with heavy 
old-fashioned silver-plate and china, all of which had 
been curious and valuable for more than a hundred 
years. The viands were savory and well cooked. My 
husband had the honor to sit next Mrs. Abbot, and I 
soon saw them looking at me and pointing to a picture 
on the wall. As I looked at it I noticed that it was 
like my mother and my sisters, and that the lady was 
dressed as I was, in yellow. In fact, it happened to 
bear a singular resemblance to me. Mrs. Abbot was 
much affected by it, and as this was a picture of her de- 
ceased daughter it became a very intimate bond between 
us, and led to a thousand kindnesses on her part tow- 
ards the stranger. 

The hour of toasts arrived, and the clergyman arose 
and drank " To the roof^^ always the first toast ; then 
" His Majesty the King" ; then '^ To our absent friends, 
God bless them !" drunk standing ; " To our friendly 
allies, Europe and America " (rather patronizingly) ; and, 
finally, " To the bride and groom," at which my next 
neighbor threw his glass over his shoulder and broke it 
in my honor. 

Then rising, each shook hands with the other, ex- 
claimed " Welbekomer P^ and we ladies retired, leaving 
the gentlemen to cigars and rum-and-water. 

After Miss Sigenbrod had dashed off a superb sonata 
on the piano, Mrs. Abbot sat down by me and put her 
sweet old hand in mine, telling me how I reminded her 
of her lost daughter. " There is her picture by Sully, of 
Philadelphia," said she; " it might be a picture of you." 
She asked me to come next week, King's Day, and see 
the people dance. " Our people [meaning the negroes] 
come in from the plantations and sing their old African 
melodies, and play the drum and dance ; it is a wild 



VISITS MADE IN SANTA CKUZ 69 

scene, one that strangers never forget. We have an 
African prince named Manuel, who was brought here 
when he was a boy. He was very unruly, but kindness 
has tamed him." 

So I saw Manuel, the African prince, and many 
another with the original brand of the slave;ships on 
their foreheads, and they played the rude drum (which 
was a skin pulled over the head of a barrel) with their 
thumbs, as they sang a monotonous chant in the minor 
key (all savage music is in the minor key, and is pro- 
foundly sad, never joyous) ; and they danced, wildly, 
savagely — as a bird might fly, with one of its wings 
broken. 

Our next expedition was to the house of an old Scotch 
knight, Sir Matthew Macdonald, whose house command- 
ed a splendid view. We found the old man of scientific 
attainments at his post of observation, noting barometers 
and thermometers and Nature generally. 

Two naval officers were of our party; their ship, a 
fine man-of-war flying the Stars and Stripes, lay in 
the harbor. Sir Matthew showed great interest in these, 
and opened a musty yellow volume in which he recorded 
the name, tonnage, number of guns, etc. 

" This I have done for fifty years," said the old gentle- 
man. " My interest in this world is bounded by what 
comes into these seas which lie under my eyes — by ISTat- 
ure, Avhich lies all about me, and the heavens above me. 
I do not care for society, for politics, for the perform- 
ance of man in the theatre of this world. So long as 
friends choose to come to me here, they are welcome ; I 
go nowhere. It may be a selfish existence, but to me 
it is a happy one, and it hurts no one." After taking 
coffee with Lady Macdonald, Sir Matthew led us into a 
ruined, desolated wing of his house to show us the rav- 



70 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

ages of the ants. They had eaten away the whole in- 
terior of the wood which had supported his astronomical 
instruments, and he had these mounted on iron plough- 
shares and broken bits of sugar-boilers. We often heard 
these ant ravages alluded to, and afterwards we saw a 
colony qf them deliberately strip off their wings and 
worm their way into a wooden wall in Mr. Hawley's 
house. Sometimes the leg of a table would go down 
unexpectedly and reveal a hollow inside : they had en- 
tirely eaten out the heart of the wood. 

Most of the houses at which we visited were monu- 
ments of past prosperity, where poverty was bravely 
and silently borne. They were, many of them, full of 
learning and refinement, full of dramatic secrets. It was 
the veriest atmosphere for the novelist. ISTo one knew 
anything about Time. He had never crossed over from 
St. Thomas, the old thief Time! Having no seasons, 
it was always summer — "sacred, high, eternal noon." 
These West-Indians never said "last autumn," "last win- 
ter." They had none of these reminders ; so the growth 
of children was their only calendar. Their newspapers 
were a fortnight old, and nobody read them but the 
planters, and they not often. A newspaper is of no in- 
terest unless you read one every day. One must keep 
hold of Time. 

The day came when we were to dine at Mr. Ran- 
dolph's, and the rich English planter received us in a 
beautiful, well-kept house. Fortune had not gone hard 
with him. We drove thither by the sea over one or two 
gentle elevations, seeing St. Thomas and Porto Rico — 
very dimly the last, but dreamy and delicious. The 
plantations looked, each with its negro huts about it, 
like little towns ; and the long, smooth, white roads, 
planted with palm-trees like long zones of umbrellas, 



Randolph's dinner 71 

had a pretty effect. But palms are not half so beautiful 
as elms. In a landscape they are ineffective. 

Mr. Eandolph lived like an English nobleman, but he 
was no more cheerful than the rest of them. He knew 
how to give a dinner. London could not have given us 
a better one. People who live in quiet, remote places 
are apt to give good dinners. They are the oft-recurring 
excitement of an otherwise unemotional, dull existence. 
They linger, each of these dinners, in our palimpsest mem- 
ories, each recorded clearly, so that it does not blot out 
the other. Mr. Randolph had travelled extensively. He 
was a " London swell " condemned to an existence in 
this remote corner. But then he had a French cook 
from the " Trois Freres Provengaux," a keenly devel- 
oped sense of gastronomy, and plenty of money. Given 
these three things, ^' avec cette sauce," and one could 
give a dinner in the desert. 

" Oh, what a good dinner we have eaten, and what ci- 
gars we are smoking !" whispered my husband to me as 
he came in furtively to bring me my fan and handker- 
chief ; and then he returned to the moonlighted veranda, 
in the shade, to look at the tropical night and to imbibe 
the fine old Santa Cruz rum and water. The time 
came for us to depart, and we drove home in the tropical 
moonlight, my husband holding a parasol over my head 
— in that superb moonlight, so soft and clear. Why? 
Randolph had told him to do so, he said, else I should 
have a swollen face, which would not become a bride. 

"Randolph thinks the moon particularly dangerous, 
not only to one's brain, but to one's personal beauty," 
said he ; " and what stories they tell of centipeds and 
the poison fish, the barracouta and the moon !" 

Our next fine dinner was at Government House. 
There we had an exact copy of what such a feast would 



73 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

be at Copenhagen, and it was very stately. As we got 
talking music during the charming dessert, his Excel- 
lenc}^ promised to play for us afterwards on the piano 
some works of a Danish composer. I found out that 
he was an ardent admirer and pupil of Rubinstein, 
and that he himself was the composer. How rarely, I 
thought, shall I find a governor who will play the piano 
like this for me ! 

" Much talk of Bulasminda after you left the table,'' 
said my husband to me. " It is the old residence of the 
late governor, Yan Scholten. The present governor of- 
fered it to us, if we wish to take it, for almost nothing. 
It stands there furnished, and with a corps of accom- 
plished servants ready at your hand. Moreover, he and 
his delightful wife will call for us and take us for a drive 
and lunch at Bulasminda to-morrow." 

Bulasminda was on a height far above the city of 
Ballin, and commanded the view and the sea-breeze so 
coveted in these islands ; here were great breezy salons 
and broad verandas, and cozy little charming boudoirs 
furnished with bright chintz. From the telescopes along 
the veranda one could but fear that Governor Yan Schol- 
ten had sat looking out to sea, for the best part of his 
occupancy, to sight the vessel which should bear him 
away. There was his journal on the table, like Robinson 
Crusoe's notched sticks : 

" Calypso sighted this morning. 

''Ariel weighed anchor at seven last evening. 

' ' Christian the Eleventh sailed to-da3^ 

" Scliooner Oustavus arrived. 

"American man-of-war Lancaster in the harbor. 

"English steamer Trent expected," etc. 

The perpetual summer of the tropics had evidently 
not enchanted Governor Yan Scholten. 



A FAMOUS LAW-SUIT 73 

We were asked by the steward to put our names in 
this book, but as we were not a steamship, nor even a 
schooner, we hesitated. After luncheon our hospitable 
hosts showed us the house ; it was vastly convenient, but 
we did not take it, not even for a week. 

The busy and hard-v/orking young lawyer had not 
forgotten his business. The case at which he worked 
several hours a day was this: A certain half- negro, 
half -Dane sea -captain named Leidesdorf had done so 
good a business between St. Thomas and San Francisco 
in the early forties that he had made money. He had 
the good-luck to be in San Francisco when gold was 
discovered, and came to own a piece of ground in the 
then small town which struck the fancy of one of the 
"Argonauts of '49." Sea -Captain Leidesdorf prom- 
ised to sell this piece of land to Captain Folsora for a 
certain sum, and was paid that money, but he started 
home in his ship for St. Thomas before the transaction 
was completed, and died just before landing. 

Hence confusion and JSTew York lawyers. His old 
mother, Anna Maria Sparks, who could neither read nor 
write, demanded boxes of jewels and barrels of gold. 
The price had gone up every hour since Captain Folsom 
made the first treaty. Should she allow her son's great 
fortune to escape her? A shrewd old Danish lawyer, 
Judge Feddersen, said no. So poor Captain Folsom kept 
paying and paying, and other heirs sprang up. My 
husband had been twice to Santa Cruz before on this 
business ; I only came in at the finish. Finally, one pay- 
ment remained, and he said that I might see that ; so he 
drove me up a hill to a humble shanty where sat a 
drunken Danish soldier on a three-legged stool awaiting 
his share, and it was paid to him — $20,000 in gold. He 
was not a Populist or a Silverite ; he distrusted paper. 



74 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

and he would have none of his own depreciated Danish 
coin ; so a little bag of gold was produced, and he was 
paid in the presence of Judge Feddersen and the clerk 
of the bank, while my husband did the legal business 
and took the receipt. I remember exactly how this 
Danish soldier cramped himself up to write his name, 
" Holder Guindrop " — I can see that autograph now. 
We then left him with his gold. He was a brother-in-law 
of the late Captain Leidesdorf, and he drank himself to 
death in three months out of his bag of gold. 

When we came back to New York Captain Folsom 
called to see us — a pale, resolute man, very embittered and 
disappointed. He had fought with wild beasts at Ephe- 
sus for his land, and said that he had paid old Anna 
Maria Sparks $200,000 too much. He died soon after, 
and the distinguished firm of Halleck, Peachy & Bil- 
lings took care of his affairs ; this was the last little leaf 
of romance Avhich came to me with my wedding journey. 

We left Santa Cruz and our dear, hospitable friends, 
our kind Mr. Hawley, and the unique days we passed 
there with great regret. I often see in my dreams that 
flower-laden porch, the lovely view from Bulasminda, 
and during Christmas week I always hear that monoto- 
nous droning sound ; I see the negroes advancing, singing 
that melancholy minor strain. Unhappy Africa with 
her burdens comes before me. I see the barbaric spirit 
get the mastery of them. They wildly throw their arms 
in the air, hysterically seize each other by the waist, as 
if the tarantula had bitten them ; then they advance slow- 
ly and with majesty towards the house, with courtesy 
and obeisance. They ask for " old Missus," and raise her 
hand to their lips and their brows ; then a fine athletic 
negro asks for the baby. It is brought in its long white 
robe; he takes it tenderly and passes it from one to 



A VISIT TO HAVANA 75 

another; they all smile, kiss the new-comer, and show 
most enviable ivory teeth, thus saluting age and youth 
with fine poetic instincts. Then they brings forward 
their oldest man, Manuel, the African prince, who per- 
forms the same Oriental homage and utters more rude 
original rhymes, to which the whole famil}'- listen po- 
litely, and they all disappear slowly ; the festival of a 
Santa Cruz Christmas is at an end. 

We went through the Caribbean Sea towards Cuba, 
stopping at Jacmel — miserable place — at Hayti and 
Jamaica, all very sad ; rounded the island of Cuba, and 
came to those fortifications at Havana which cost the 
Spanish king so much that he asked if they were built 
of silver! Our steamer happened to be the English 
Trent, which years after was made historical by the 
fact that Mason and Slidell were on board of her when 
a Yankee gun stopped her further progress. Havana 
was then a beautiful, peaceful town, full of rich people 
who were fond of entertaining. I remember we attend- 
ed a grand fete at the palace of Mr. Aldama, the rich- 
est of the Cubans. It Avas fairy-like in its beauty, regal 
in magnificence. We went to the opera, one of the gay- 
est in the world ; w^e drove in a volante up and down 
that gorgeous Paseo of a Sunday afternoon, all the 
ladies in full dress ; we bought fans ; we enjoyed and 
explored the romantic Spanish city, full of luxury. But, 
alas ! the negroes, the slaves with the chain-gang, each 
with an iron ball on a lame leg, cleaning the streets, 
spoiled it for me. Even then Americans were objects 
of suspicion, and we had to conceal our identity while 
an English officer took us over the Moro Castle. We 
went out to Matanzas to see a coffee plantation. It 
was all very gay and very tropical and yet unlike 
Santa Cruz. There was no e7inui in this lively Havana 



76 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

life ; yet there were mutterings, not loud but deep, over 
the hated Spaniard. Captain Walker, the filibuster, had 
been in that neighborhood. There was talk of annexa- 
tion, but the trouble had not come yet. So I remember 
the island in perhaps its period of greatest prosperity, 
and certainly when it was one of the gayest and most 
agreeable of winter sojourns. 

'New York had three great visitors within the two 
years after my wedding journey. They were Eachel, 
Thackeray, and Fanny Kemble. Each a memory for a 
lifetime. 

It was after a tiresome journey from our country 
place, one October evening, that, making a hasty toilet, 
I went to the theatre to see Rachel in PJiedre. I did 
not know that I was to have this supreme pleasure so 
soon, although I knew I should see her sometime. ■ So 
incoherent Avere my expectations that I thought my 
early memorizing of the great play would help me to 
understand her and to measure the greatness of her 
acting. 

I had been made, when studying French, to memorize 
those lofty Alexandrines of Racine's masterpiece ; there- 
fore the storj^ of Phedre was very familiar. Remember- 
ing that the goddess had condemned the poor queen to 
fall in love with her stepson, I pictured her as rather an 
elderly person, perhaps a sort of Mrs. Nickleby. Who, 
then, was this young, sorrowful woman coming in Avith 
tragic face, dragging after her, as if its weight were in- 
supportable, the long crimson mantle of a queen ? Who 
was this dark-eyed creature, so young, so lovely, who 
sank into her imperial seat, the crimson mantle draped 
behind her, throwing out her beautiful arms and her 
delicate little head? The lover, an ugly, big-headed 



RACHEL AND HER ACTING 77 

young Frenchman, against whose presence she shud- 
dered so that she seemed to shake the stage, fully car- 
ried out the idea that the power of the goddess must 
have been supreme, for no woman in her senses could 
have fallen in love with him. Rachel never seemed to 
walk, and in Phedre she gave the idea that a serpent 
was hidden under her long robe, on whose undulations 
she was moved along irrespective of her own volition. 
Her eyes were half closed, and her whole face, expressive 
of baleful passion which her nobler self hated, was the 
most beautiful, painful thing possible. Her voice was 
the very soul of music. She did not seem to know that 
an audience was present. Her absorption in her part 
was so perfect that I was full of pity for her, and won- 
dered if she would live until the end of the play. When 
it was ended I found myself paralyzed and unable to 
rise for some moments. It w^as the most powerful of 
ail artistic emotions that I have experienced in a long 
life of theatre-going. 

I afterwards saw her in all her best parts — Adrienne 
Lecouvreur, Camille, in which she w^as emphaticalh^ 
beautiful, in a classic Greek dress with scarlet fillet in 
her hair; and again in a charming comedy, Le Moineau 
de Lesbie^ in w^hich her rare smile and playfulness were 
most conspicuous. I remember even the beauty of her 
robe in this play. 

The wonder of Rachel's playing was the wonder of 
all genius. You did not see her^ or her art ; you saw the 
real creature whom her art portrayed. In this respect 
Salvini was nearest to her of any artist I have seen. 
Her sister, Sarah Felix, was an admirable artiste, and so 
was her brother, Raphael ; but they played on the stage, 
while Rachel floated in an ether over it. When the two 
sisters played Elizabeth and Mary in the great drama of 



78 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Marie Stuart there was a question as to which was the 
greater queen; but when Mary Stuart receives her 
death sentence there was no doubt. Such a creature 
ruled heaven as well as earth, and human misfortunes 
assumed their appropriate place beneath her real ex- 
altation. And yet this part was not Eachel's greatest 
triumph. She reigns in memory as Camille, the Ko- 
man sister. 

Soon after the departure of Kachel, Fanny Kemble 
began a course of readings in New York. This gifted 
niece of Mrs. Siddons gave us all the great Kemble tra- 
ditions, and her voice, a miracle of expressive music, 
added the final charm. It was a message from Shake- 
speare. 

I liked her best in the Tempest, as the contrast of 
Ariel and Caliban is so extraordinary. The majestic 
poetry, and, again, the broad humor of the minor 
characters, especially of the drunken Trinculo, afforded 
her all the sweep and scope she needed for her tre- 
mendous powers. She absolutely reeled in the scene 
with Trinculo. Her Caliban was immense. 

She was very grand in Measure for Measure and 
Cyinbeline^ two plays with which I had not been fa- 
miliar. And oh ! how great in Macbeth and King Lear ! 
The latter was almost too much. It gave me a head- 
ache. I am not sure I would like to see it again. 

I heard Thackeray's first series of lectures in Xew 
York on " The Four Georges " ; but I was not destined 
to know him until he came the second time, in 1855. 
America had welcomed him as the author of PuncJis 
Prize Novelists and of Vanity Fair, which reached us 
about 1849. The enthusiastic regard of Charlotte Bronte 
for Mr. Thackeray, who spoke of him as the "first social 
regenerate of the day, the one who should restore to rec- 



i 



THACKERAY AT THE CENTURY. 79 

titude the warped order of things," found an echo in our 
hearts. He was a complete success. He was as delight- 
ful as his own literary personages are, and so " like his 
writings " that every one spoke of it. His allusions, his 
voice, his looks, were all just what we had expected. 
]^ever did a long- hoped-for hero fill the bill so thoroughly. 
His loving and life-giving genius spoke in every word. 
Wonderful examples of excellence those papers on " The 
Four Georges," and delivered in a clear, fine, rich voice. 
Their simplicity was matchless, and the fun in him came 
out as he described the fourth George, and then stopped, 
not smiling himself, while w^e all laughed. He silently 
stood, his head tipped back, and then calmly wiped his 
spectacles and went on. He had a charm as a speaker 
which no one has since caught : it defies analysis, as does 
his genius. It was Thackerayian. 

I think that I heard then that he was more widely 
read in America than in England ; he was certainly 
treated with great hospitality. The Century Club (then 
wholly made up of authors, artists, and actors) was pro- 
nounced by him the " best club in the world." He was 
allowed the fullest liberty there ; and as he was a man of 
moods, and his mood was sometimes silence, he was glad 
of a corner where he could sit unobserved. Fitz-Greene 
Halleck, who wrote " Green be the turf above thee !" 
and "At midnight in her guarded tent," entertained 
him ; and Hackett, the comedian, and Sparrowgrass 
Cozzens and Willis and Bryant and Cooper were all 
of this party. While in Boston James T. Field, most 
admirable of friends, took that care of him which his 
genial nature suggested. Washington Irving and Bay- 
ard Taylor were also here then to greet him. 

I saw him several times during his later visit in 1855, 
and in the company of Miss Sallie Baxter, who was the 



80 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITT 

beautiful girl who suggested to him the character or 
personal appearance of Ethel Newcomb, at least such 
was the gossip. 

I remember going with her to one of his lectures and 
seeing Thackeray in the greenroom before he entered. 
It was here he showed the playful and engaging side 
of his manner. Thackeray was a gentleman born and 
bred, and his polish of manner never left him, even 
when his fun would have made him boyish. 

Sallie Baxter was a dark beauty of the Spanish type, 
most exquisitely lovely, with fabulous great black eyes, 
whose lashes swept her e3^ebrows. She was a natural, 
unaffected person, and during his stay in 'New York 
Thackeray was frequently a guest in her mother's house. 
Miss Baxter seemed to treat him like a daughter. Per- 
haps she brought back those dear ones whom he had left 
at 13 Young Street, South Kensington. Many suppers 
and dinners and theatre parties brought me to see the 
great man rather intimately, and I do not remember a 
more easy-going and genial person. His tall, command- 
ing form and gray head, his ne^ retrousse and his eye- 
glasses, his firm tread and charming laugh, got to be as 
well known in New York as they were in London. His 
little notes in his very neat handwriting found their 
way into our albums. He was always accessible and 
full of enjoyment, and yet when we saw him sailing 
along majestically down Broadway, with his hands in 
his pockets, there was an air of melancholy and of pre- 
occupation in his expressive face. But he was " as ret- 
icent as he was brave," and no one heard him speak 
of his sorrows, if he had any. Perhaps this was one 
of the happiest periods of his life. Sallie Baxter mar- 
ried at the South, was separated from her Northern 
family by the terrors of the civil war, and died young, 



A DINNER WITH MISS THACKEBAT 81 

away from them. I think she died about the same 
time that Thackeray did, perhaps a year before. 

A kind-hearted, noble, tender man ; a generous, sincere 
gentleman ; a healthy, good liver, and with a fine grip 
to his hearty hand. He was a big man and heavy, and 
walked with a strong step ; a healthful, broad-shouldered 
Englishman, whose jollity and fun seemed to forbid ret- 
icence on his part, but who could and did, at the touch 
of humbug or affectation, retreat into himself, turn away 
with an expression of polished irony on his face, and, 
with a singular movement of the head, assure the bore 
that he was no longer needed. 

When we went to England in 1869, Miss Thackeray 
gave us a dinner. Her home then was with her sister 
and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Stephen. The 
afterwards much-talked-of Mr. Justice Stephen was of 
the part}^, and Doyle was there, the artist of Punchy so 
distinguished for his " Brown, Jones, and Eobinson." I 
had a letter to Miss Thackeray from Dr. Bellows ; but to 
be an American and a friend of their father was to these 
ladies a sufficient introduction, and they treated us with 
great kindness. We saw many of the MSS. of Thack- 
eray's famous works, illustrated by his own hand, and 
Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Stephen took every pains to show us 
these treasures. 

During this dinner, at which Miss Thackeray made 
herself very agreeable, a message came in from Madame 
Eitchie saying that her son, Kichmond Eitchie, had 
passed his examinations successfully. This seemed to 
be much-longed-for news to all of them, and it is the 
more agreeable to remember, since he is the gentleman 
who has made her so happy as her husband for twenty 
years. 

I had the pleasure of meeting this famous and agree- 



83 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

able Mrs. Ritchie at Aix-les-Bains in 1888, and to sit and 
talk with her near a vine-clad wall, up which the lizards 
were climbing, was indeed a great pleasure. Her com-- 
panionship made this prettiest place on earth, Aix-les- 
Bains, even more attractive (" Savoie, c'est la grace alpes- 
tre," says Victor Hugo) than it is by nature. 

And indeed here, by the Lake of Bouget, did I have 
one of the most treasured talks of Thackera}'^ with one 
of the dearest of women, his much -beloved daughter 
Anne. 

Anthony Trollope said of Thackeray, ''One loves him 
as one loves a woman, tenderly and with thought- 
fulness, thinking of him when away from him as a 
source of joy which cannot be analyzed, but is full of 
comfort." 

'Nor was he less dear to others who saw less of him. 

The great heart which kept that gigantic brain. go- 
ing was indeed a tender heart. 

These early fifties were the blessed days, when we had 
a novel by Dickens and one by Thackeray running at the 
same time ; and Charlotte Bronte, having overwhelmed 
us with Jane M/re, was good enough to give us Yillette^ 
which has in it the best description of Rachel's acting 
which I have ever seen, and her not less characteristic 
novel of Shirley. Such was our literary luxury. 

Among the visitors to New York who created no lit- 
tle stir in the early fifties was Miss Anne Pamela Cun- 
ningham, from Yirginia, introduced by Mrs. Anna Cora 
Mo watt Ritchie. Miss Cunningham started the idea of 
buying Mount Yernon. It reminds me of how small a 
town New York was then that we soon set the whole 
of it ringing with this enthusiasm. Dion Boucicault 
and Agnes Robertson played their sensational drama 
Pauvrette for us ; Mrs. Mowatt Ritchie gave some tab- 



MISS ANNE PAMELA CUNNINGHAM 83 

leaux at Mr. Edward Cooper's. Mr. Everett, however, 
was our best friend in the way of raising money. 

I think Mr. Everett's contribution to this purchase 
amounted to nearly $50,000. I know that Mr. Kobert 
Eonner sent him a check for $10,000 for writing some 
papers for the Ledger^ all of which Mr. Everett contrib- 
uted to the cause. Miss Mary M. Hamilton was made 
Eegent of the State, and, assisted by the best people of 
Kew York, bravely carried the burden to her lamented 
death. 

What a forlorn, old, neglected place Mount Yernon 
was then ! but how soon it became cared for and clean ! 
And now it is almost as it was when Washington lived 
there, if we can spiritually see the real furnishing of the 
past. The office of regent fell to the able hands of Mrs. 
Justine Yan Rensselaer Townsend, a Colonial Dame, 
and fitted in every way to be the sponsor of such a 
trust. I rejoice that it is now the care of the women of 
America, but I am glad I remember the poor old place 
in 1848, when it had nothing to look at but the key of 
the Bastile, which nobody wished to take away or steal. 

I worked with Miss Hamilton all these early years 
in favor of this patriotic object. Glad were we that it 
was paid for and safe before the dreadful days of the 
war, for we had other and more urgent need for all the 
money that any one could give. 

Miss Anne Pamela Cunningham was aristocratic to a 
great fault, and so very " Secesh " in her sympathies that 
she would not speak to any J^orthern person after the 
war. Mrs. Ritchie, poor woman ! after her striking career 
as a beauty in New York's best set, and her career as 
an actress in America and England, married Mr. Ritchie, 
of Richmond, went abroad during the war, and died in 
London poor, and inexpressibly saddened at the inevita- 



84 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

ble separation which that war had brought about. One 
of the most interesting events of the early fifties had 
been to me the seeing her official retirement from the 
stage. She played Pauline in the Lady of Lyons, in 
which she had made her debut, ten years before, at the 
old Park Theatre. The house was crowded as the pretty 
blond woman made her graceful speech. The next most 
interesting event was her wedding, at the country place 
of her father on Long Island, and a very gay fete it was. 
Her husband w^as an editor at Pichmond, Ya., a most 
gentlemanly and excellent person, tenderly fond, and true 
to her. But the sorrows of their country tore them 
apart, nor did they live to see the day of reconciliation, 
prosperity, and reconstruction. 

I have often thought that some record of this service 
of hers should be perpetuated at Mount Yernpn. I 
know that Miss Hamilton (afterwards Mrs. George L. 
Schuyler) had this very much at heart. Anna Cora 
Mowatt Ritchie brought this idea to the notice of the 
public of New York, the purchase of Mount Yernon, 
and she should have her picture hung in one of those 
now beautifully restored rooms, and the memory of 
Miss Anne Pamela Cunningham should be venerated. 



CHAPTER V 

The Visit of the Prince of Wales— The Ball at the Academy of Music 
— The First Days of the War — The Sanitary Commission — The 
Metropolitan Fair — Washington in 1863 — General McClellan and 
the French Princes — A Ball at the White House and Picnics in 
Camp. 

One of the first events of social importance in the 
early sixties was the visit of the Prince of Wales to 
I^ew York. I remember the pretty, slender, fair-haired 
youth very well, and went to the ball given in his honor. 
Ladies then dressed in the style of Eugenie's portrait by 
"Winterhalter — long, flowing trains, a rather small hoop, 
tight sleeves, the low-necked dress defined around the 
neck with a berthe of lace, and the hair dressed low in 
bandeaux under the ears, with wreaths and streaming 
garlands of artificial flowers on the head. Certainly the 
style left a fine figure well to itself, with no impertinent 
deformities. 

Yery aristocratic and grand looked the assemblage in 
the old Academy of Music at the ball given to greet 
the Prince. 

The Fishes, Belmonts, Astors, Cuttings, Morrises, Kings, 
Livingstons, Hamiltons, Jays, Duers, Emmets, Kussells, 
Cunards, Howlands, Aspinwalls, Grinnells, Schuylers, 
Pells, and Rhinelanders made then a ver}^ decided and 
exclusive circle, of which Mrs. Belmont might be called 
the fashionable leader. Mrs. Hamilton Fish, Mrs. Eobert 
Cutting, and Mrs. J. J. Astor were the duchesses ; Mrs. 



86 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Lloyd Aspinwall and Mrs. G. G. Howland the great 
beauties. Miss Helen Kussell was elected to dance with 
the Prince. A very beautiful girl, whom I saw for the 
first time that evening, was Miss Pierrepont, of Brooklyn, 
who afterwards married Mr. Rutherford Stuy vesant, and 
who died in her early married life. 

This ball, however, was more municipal than exclusive. 
I remember that Mr. Maunsell B. Field, a very accom- 
plished literary man, took great interest in it, and was 
especially distressed when a loud explosion took place 
and down went the floor, a great temporary structure 
built over the stage and parquet of the Academy. I 
remember seeing strong men grow pale at this catastro- 
phe ; some women shrieked, and the Duke of Newcastle 
dragged the little Prince out of harm's way. One friend 
of mine, who had a great horror of balls, happened to 
stand directly over the very spot where the floor sank 
gently down into a sort of Y-shaped funnel and then 
stopped. " There," said she, '' I told you so !" as her hus- 
band dragged her out. It might have been the most 
frightful catastrophe of the year, but it was, mercifully, 
not. It was easily mended, and the Prince was gayly 
dancing and talking and laughing over the late chasm. 
It was great " nuts " to him, doubtless. 

I principally enjoyed talking to the Duke of New- 
castle, who told me of some of his anxieties about the 
Prince. 

^' Prince, how air you? and how's your mother?" was 
the address of one lady to the rather astonished boy. 

I liked to see the gay procession of carriages and sol- 
diers who accompanied the Prince on his way from his 
steamer to his hotel through crowds of gazers. The city 
was en fete. It was but a little city then compared with 
what it is now. Albert Edward bowed to right and left, 



THE FIKST DAYS OF THE WAR 87 

and put np bis hand to smooth his hair, boyish fashion. 

He visited Mr. Buchanan, the President, and then went^ •^ ^ 

on to Eichmond, where he was not so well treated. ^%^T|U i \ 

Mr. Buchanan wrote a beautiful letter to Queen Yic- \ S' J 

toria about the manly bearing of her son, and of how ' "* ^ * ' 
well he had passed through a trying ordeal for one of his 
age. Indeed, Albert Edward always had tact ; he has it 
still. " Dignified, frank, and affable, he has conciliated, 
wherever he has been, the kindness and respect of a sen- 
sitive and discriminating people," said Mr. Buchanan in 
this very good letter. 

Probably one of the many reasons why Yictoria and 
Albert were so friendly to the IS'orth when their friend- 
ship was needed was their remembrance of the kindness 
of the Northern people to their son. 

Poor Mr. Buchanan ! the Northerners were not satis- 
fied that he was trying to prevent the war, and General 
Dix's emphatic message to an officer of the navy, " If 
any one fires on the American flag, shoot him on the 
spot," fired the American heart ; and yet all the Southern- 
ers and Washingtonians thought Mr. Buchanan was do- 
ing exactly right. Miss Josephine Seaton wrote to Mr. 
Buchanan, in June, 1862: "I consider you the last con- 
stitutional President we shall ever see. At a moment 
when passion whirled the country to frenzy you had 
the true courage to refrain, to abide within the lines 
marked out by the Constitution for the Executive. 
Were you still with us we should not be embarked in 
this fearful fratricidal strife." 

Such were the two sides of the shield. I think every 
American should be glad to have not seen that fratrici- 
dal strife. 

And yet it was profoundly grand and heart-stirring. I 
had just grown to know Theodore Winthrop, the young 



JUL 



88 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

author of Cecil Dreeme — a name which seemed to de- 
.^ * scribe him. And it was heart-breaking to learn that 

^^^yj^riiis life ended at Ball's Bluff. I remember the soft sum- 
mer morning when I looked from my window to see a 
gun-carriage with a coffin covered with roses, on which 
lay his little blue cap, his sorrowing friends walking by 
his side. The last of Theodore Winthrop ! The next 
day five young captains were borne by dead on their 
shields. It seemed as if not all the principles in the 
world were worth that agony. Had it not been for the 
Sanitary Commission, our hearts would have broken. 

It is amazing to remember how every one responded 
to the trumpet-call which Dr. Bellows sent forth, how 
every woman became a " worker" for the soldiers in the 
field. It was no holiday enthusiasm ; it was the business 
of life. 
/ I became the secretary of the Metropolitan Fair," and 
I wrote innumerable letters to all our representatives in 
( Europe. / Mr. Motley and Mr. Marsh (at Kome) re- 
sponded nobly. All answered well. I only happen to 
remember these two men whose letters were uncom- 
monly eloquent. I remember that I sold Mr. Motley's 
letter for fifteen dollars at our autograph counter — a 
fact which I told him in 1869, when he was minister to 
England. I said " that ardent youth would have bought 
your name over again half a dozen times for that 
amount, Mr. Motley." "Well," said he, " I will let him 
have it very cheap now." After a winter's work we 
sent Dr. Bellow^s " one million three hundred and sixty- 
five dollars," in one check, as the result of our winter's 
work at the Metropolitan Fair. 

Kichard Grant White was the secretary of the male 
part of the work, and together w^e got up a Dramatic 
Committee which was very successful in its little way. 



THE SANITARY COMMISSION 89 

Indeed, we made twelve thousand dollars in a month. 
Mr. Lester Wallack became stage-manager, and ladies 
and gentlemen worlced hard in their various parts at 
comedy and opera. One of our most beautiful jeu7ies 
premiers was Archie Pell, and our play-bills bore this 
striking record (he left his part unplayed one evening) : 
" Lieutenant Pell obliged to leave for the seat of war." 
It was all like the ball the night before Waterloo. 

A strange carmagnole gayety reigned in society. Peo- 
ple were only half sane. They went to the theatre madly, 
worked seven hours a day at the Sanitary Commission, and 
then danced all night. Young fops went off to the war 
and became wonderful soldiers. "The puppies fight 
well." Leaders of the german became good leaders of 
men, and one of the best drill -master generals had 
been a dancing-master. 

In our own ranks at the fair, Mrs. Hamilton Fish was 
our president, Mrs. David Lane vice - president ; Mrs. 
Astor was a diligent worker, Mrs. James B. Colgate 
very ably led off an auxiliary in Union Square, and a 
great many earnest women killed themselves by over- 
work. A most gifted and rare woman, one of our first 
humorists, Mrs. C. P. Kirkland, fell dead in the fair 
building one crowded evening ; and Mrs. David Dudley 
Field died at her own house, just after leaving the fair.^ 

One of the most curious epidemics was that of an un- 
bounded generosity. Everybody would give away his 
or her most treasured possession to be sold for the sol- 
diers. I have always been afraid that many rare edi- 
tions of books, taken from libraries and committed to 
these fairs, and many an autograph, were sacrificed. 
Old silver, too, was given with reckless freedom, to be 
sadly missed afterwards. And none of them brought 
what they were worth. 



90 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Mais c'est la guerre. War is a most uneconomical, 
foolish, poor arrangement, a bloody enrichment of that 
soil which bears the sweet flower of peace, and we saw 
the worst of it in many ways. 

We went on, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the 
thirsty, clothing the soldier, binding up his wounds, har- 
boring the stranger, visiting the sick, ministering to the 
prisoner, and burying the dead, until that blessed day at 
Appomattox Court House relieved the strain. I went 
to Washington in 1862-3, when it was a camp. Proba- 
bly no capital in a state of siege was ever more gay and 
amusing. Foreigners, princes, and potentates, names of 
a thousand years and names of yesterday, were all jum- 
bled in a state of frenzy and confusion. And the mud ! 
Oh, the mud ! I saw General McClellan with his two 
young aides, the French princes. Count de Paris and 
Due de Chartres, ride into Washington so encrusted 
with mud that they looked like fossil monsters. 

All about the city for thirty miles spread the tents, 
the camp-fires, the stockades of a citizen soldiery, ap- 
prentices to the great art of war. Every new condition 
of human life, every possible embarrassment of chmate, 
food, and shelter, came to try men's souls. Suffering of 
the keenest dwelt in those tents, besides joviality and 
excitement ; for the light, easily amused American tem- 
perament found much to like and to laugh at even in 
the surroundings of cold and mud, poor food, and in- 
eradicable dirt, not to speak of the sober realities of 
the measles and scarlet-fever and smallpox and typhoid 
fever, all of which paid our army a visit from time to 
time. 

I went to the great ball at the White House given by 
Mr. Lincoln to General McClellan. There were five thou- 
sand people at this ball, and ten thousand outside disap- 



GENERAL McCLELLAN AND THE FRENCH PRINCES 91 

pointed. All the upper grades of the army and navy, 
the diplomatic corps, the distinguished members of the 
two Houses, the Supreme Court, the cabinet, foreigners 
of rank, and that class of persons who, having none of 
these claims, are, by some subtle magnetism, among those 
who are always invited everywhere — all these were 
there. 

The two French princes were, of course, most con- 
spicuous and honored. The Comte de Paris w^as then 
tall, slender, good-looking, and with the ideal manners 
of a prince. The Due de Chartres was taller, thinner, 
less handsome, but with fine manners. They were both 
young enough to enjoy a ball and the society of young 
ladies. 

There were the brilliant young soldiers gathered from 
the ranks of civil life, over whom hung the fatal pall ; 
but the clash of civil war paused while the waltzes 
played, and the gay festival went on while Death waited 
outside. A great, original, and distinct form, a gro- 
tesque figure perhaps, but lighted up with a pair of 
wonderful eyes, stood there to receive the guests — a 
man over whom hung the deepest trials and the baleful 
death of assassination, Abraham Lincoln. 

His smile and voice were beautiful and his eyes 
superb. There his beauty ended, but the magnetic re- 
sult of genius remained. Every one is glad to have 
touched his hand. 

We all felt that the men about us were making his- 
tory, and that we w^ere looking at heroes, if we could 
only find them out. Mine was General McClellan, 
whom I always continued to admire. I remember now 
what a thrill ran through me as he was kind enough to 
come and talk to me. His style was Yery quiet and re- 
served, but his conversation had a charm, impressing 



92 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

one with the feeling that he could say a great deal 
more if he only would. 

Washington was at that time full of illy regulated 
and discontented spirits. Women also had ranged all 
the way from flannels to flirtation. Among many bet- 
ter women was the femme inco'mjprise, who wanted to 
" nurse in the hospitals." She, however, wished to do 
the poetry of nursing — the writing of letters for some 
mysterious nobleman who was now posing as a common 
soldier, and who should make this beautiful and fashion- 
able nurse his confidante. 

Then, again, there were women spies and women trai- 
tors in high places who had the inside track, and who 
sheltered themselves behind their sex. 

This miserable spy business, which seems one of the 
worst horrors of war, contaminating him who gives and 
him who takes, was amplified and most terribly compli- 
cated by the fact that the daughters and wives of dis- 
tinguished l^orthern generals were perhaps Southern 
sympathizers and ready to betray the secrets of the 
]^orthern army. There was one such who gave General 
McClellan great trouble. She was graceful and winning. 
She went through the camps learning the character of 
army officers ; was as keen and sagacious as she was 
winning, and was a favorite with all men of mark. And 
what a strange time it was ! Who knew his neighbor? 
Who was a traitor and who a patriot? The hero of 
to-day was the suspected of to-morrow. ]^o one knew 
when he went to bed whether he should rise a general, 
or, ceasing to be anybody, should be consigned to dis- 
grace and the Capitol prison ; for our great War Minister, 
possessed of strong virtues, was also arbitrary and vio- 
lent almost to a fault. 

Through many such a maze was the plain, honest, in- 



A BALL AT THE WHITE HOUSE — PICNICS IN CAMP 93 

corruptible soul of General McClellan bound to travel 
until it met relief in action. The plans of the army, 
however carefully prepared, however secretly conceived, 
became known to the enemy before they were known to 
the President. There were traitors in the most secret 
council -chambers. Generals, senators, and secretaries 
looked at each other with suspicious eyes. At length a 
woman discovered one traitor, and thus another was un- 
masked ; and some were asked to cross the sea, and did 
so. 

I think history has not sufficiently emphasized this 
distracting element in our early warlike days. It was 
inevitable, perhaps, in a civil war, when father and 
daughter, and husband and wife, brother and sister, were 
armed against each other. It is a great wonder that the 
city of Washington was not betrayed, burned, destroyed 
a half-dozen times. 

The scene for four years was " idyllic, grotesque, and 
barbaric," and society was most interesting. The stu- 
dent of the romantic side of life had great opportunities. 
Women of genius, sparkle, and even of eccentricity were 
sure to succeed. Washington societ}^ has always de- 
manded less and given more than any society in this 
country — demanded less of applause, deference, etiquette, 
and has accepted as current coin quick wit, appreciative 
tact, and a talent for talking. The slender figures on 
horseback of the pretty women made the Long Bridge 
look like the Row in London, and the physical exercise 
gave them splendid color. 

Picnics out at the camps were the fashion. The camp 
equipage, tin cups and plates, knives and forks of the 
simplest. Spartan fare, all added to the attraction of the 
feast, and as all cavalrymen are bound to be dashing, 
one or two such were always at the head of the feast, 



94 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

pouring sympathetic and most dangerous compliments 
into the ears of a New York or Philadelphia belle. It 
was romance in its concrete form, while the presence of 
a beautiful woman in a camp has been decidedl}^ fasci- 
nating since the days of Antony and Cleopatra. 

The cloud was so dark that it needed all the bright 
lights that could be turned upon it. But for four years 
there was a contagion of nobility in the land, and the 
best blood North and South poured itself out a libation 
to propitiate the deities of Truth and Justice. The great 
sin of slavery was washed out, but at what a cost ! 

But for this no work was too hard, no effort too great, 
no sacrifice too sublime. The thinking bayonets, the 
men fighting for an idea with no idea of conquest, noth- 
ing to gain, facing frightful loss, probable death — such 
men had different faces from the ordinary soldier. As 
one heard them chanting their hymns to the accompani- 
ment of iron heels and clanking bayonets there was an 
expression so lofty, so touching, that no one who has 
heard it will ever forget. 

And the day after was a bright and prosperous one in 
all our cities. Equipages dashed out in foreign liveries ; 
women dressed superbly ; palaces began to go up into 
the air ; New York looked as if she had inherited the 
wealth of the Indies ; and so she had — on paper. 

Pay-day came somewhat later on, and has recurred 
frequently since. But the wa}^ these two armies melt- 
ed immediately into good citizens, how they took up 
the plough and the hoe — that is the strangest and the 
most inexplicable fact of all. 

During the years after the war, and when General 
Grant had become President, I made many visits to 
Washington ; twice to the hospitable home of Governor 
Morgan, whose handsome house was on the very site 



THE HIGH JOINT COMMISSION 95 

of the former isolated hut where my negro washer- 
woman had lived in the early forties. Washington 
grew like a gourd in the night, and was then fast be- 
coming what it is now, the most beautiful of cities. 

Sir Edward Thornton was the English Minister ; the 
Hon. Hamilton Fish was Secretary of State, and his 
dear accomplished wife was filling her place as it has 
seldom been filled. I saw the High Joints (as they 
were facetiously called) in all their glory at her house 
at a party — Sir Stafford J^orthcote, Earl de Grey, etc. 
The High Joint Commission presented a noble list of 
names on both sides. One of the most agreeable men 
at Washington at this time, and for many years after, 
was the Hon. Henry B. Anthony, of Ehode Island, a 
diear friend, a polished and cultivated man. 






CHAPTER VI 

Some Memories of Distinguished People— The New England Literati 
— Mrs. Sigourney and Miss Sedgwick — Dr. Bellows and the 
Transcendentalists — Mr. Bryant's Dinners — Recollections of Booth 
— The lago Dress — Chief- Justice Chase — Sherman and Grant 
— Adelaide Ristori. 

In many visits to Hartford, which beautiful city was 
the joy of my girlhood, I met Mrs. Sigourney — the 
sweet, calm Mrs. Barbauld of our early verse, and a 
dear woman. She was Hartford's first litterateur^ to be 
followed by such eminent stars as Mrs. Sto we,. Charles 
Dudley Warner, Mark Twain, and I do not know how 
many more. Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. Anne S. Stephens, 
and Mrs. Sigourney were the most read and talked of 
of our authoresses of that day. Mrs. Stephens's Fashion 
and Famine^ in which was pictured Mrs. Coventry Wad- 
dell's curious house on the top of Murray Hill, sur- 
rounded by unoccupied lots (and which bore the strong 
and useful suggestion for the subsequent helping of the 
poor so admirably carried out by Miss Schuyler), was 
the novel of the day. Miss Sedgwick was a most dis- 
tinguished woman. Her novel Hoye Leslie had been 
the first ]^ew England success, and she was the idol 
of the most agreeable and successful of all the great 
brother - and - sister families, the Lenox Sedgwicks, who 
were to be followed by the Dwights and the Fields, 
all Berkshire County people of that day. Mrs. Eobert 
Sedgwick was one of the entertainers of the literary 
and fashionable sets as they commingled when I first 



THE BEGINNING OF THE SANITARY COMillSSION 97 

came to JSTew York to live. It was there that I first 
met Bryant and Dr. Bellows and the illuminati gen- 
erally. Her four charming daughters, her handsome 
son, Ellery Sedgwick, and their celebrated " Aunt Cath- 
arine," with Mrs. Sedgwick's wit and hospitality^, drew 
all around her. It was a home to the somewhat lonel^y 
young woman, who had not then found her place. Dr. 
Lieber, the great philosopher, was there sometimes. 
Dt. Bellows was the delightful and genial talker of 
the group. Who could, who ever can, describe his 
fascinating talk? His sermons were models of pul- 
pit eloquence; the mantle of Channing fell on his 
shoulders, but it was the every -day charm which was 
his attraction. Genial, delightful, scholarly, always in 
a fine Sydney Smith humor, he poured out his deepest, 
wisest, best thoughts with prodigal lavishness ; then 
would come wild, witty, airy fancies and sweet serious- 
ness, and facts that could scald like tears. Whatever 
mood he was in, whatever part of your character he 
wished to impress, his eloquence was always to be de- 
pended upon. Iso one wished to argue any point he 
had taken; he carried all before him. 

His sermons were infinitely inspiring and useful ; his 
talk was a celestial recreation ; he was funny as well as 
witty, and behind all there was a good, hard, Xew Eng- 
land common-sense. When he and his associates. Dr. 
Agnew, George T. Strong, etc., took up the Sanitary 
Commission, this latter qualification made him the su- 
perbly successful organizer and useful man that he proved 
to be. At his house what assemblages of humorists and 
philanthropists and talkers I have met ! — George L. 
Schuyler, Hoppin, Bryant, Tuckerman, Bancroft, Peter 
Cooper, Washington Irving, Eitz-Greene Halleck, George 
William Curtis, and aU the artists. Those delightful 



98 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

daughters of Mr. James A. Hamilton, Mrs. Schu3^1er and 
Miss Mary Morris Hamilton, Mrs. Kirkland (the first 
of our female humoristic writers, authof of A New Home^ 
^¥}lom Follow f\ Parke Godwin, AYillis Gaylord Clark, 
Huntington, Frothingham, Lewis Lang, Dr. Osgood, and 
so on, met at his house ; their names escape me, the 
list is so long. Dr. Bellows's wit-combats with Mrs. 
Frances Anne Kemble were kept up twenty years, each 
giving the other friendly little pats ; and no one enjoyed 
her witty retorts more than he did, although perhaps 
his ears tingled. 

Dr. Bellows's life was a great part of JSTew York, 
and of the war it was the bright and illuminated 
page. Why does not some one write it? What a 
book it would be! I suppose his administration of 
the Sanitary Commission would read like a romance 
now — alas, how much of it I saw! and some of it 
I was. 

I cannot remember when Dr. Bellows began to be 
a bright star in my life. We were neighbors in the 
country, and he often took my mother's tea. Many old 
associations continued to draw us together until his la- 
mented death ; and now that he is a brilliant memory I 
often find myself referring to that excellent example of 
undying cheerfulness, that patience in which he excelled 
all his peers. Dr. Bellows was a fortunate man out- 
wardly; he was always first in every circle; he had 
enjoyed a great deal of the luxurious happiness of 
travel ; the world was full of beautiful places for him 
to be happy in, for he made every day a holiday 
for all around him. He found that the bliss of a spirit 
was in action; he worked hard; but he had a great 
many grievous trials, for which he wore the armor of 
a Christian spirit. There could be no enlargement of 



EARLY TEANSCENDENTALISM 99 

such a horizon except in eternity. It was a model 
life. 

Living with him at one time w^ere Mr. and Mrs. Oc- 
tavius B. Frothingham, and they added a great charm 
to that pretty rectory, corner of Twenty-first Street and 
Fourth Avenue, of which one of the doctor's witty broth- 
ers-in-law^, Mr. Fred Nevins, said that it was too hand- 
some for a "dissenting minister." Mr. Frothingham's 
wit, eloquence, and peculiar belief drew around him a 
set of worshippers of his own ; he had for many years 
a large following. His excellent compendium Tran- 
scendentalism in New England is a most valuable book, 
being a thoughtful, scholarly history of that strange, 
mystical liberalizing of religious thought which swept 
over JSTew England for forty years, doing much good 
and very little harm. It brought out such men as 
Theodore Parker, C. A. Bartol, John Weiss, the younger 
Channing, James Freeman Clarke. Emerson may be 
said to have been its Luther. 

Dr. "Washburn used to say of these transcendentalists, 
" They opened a window and let in a fresh breeze, cleans- 
ing the close garret of New England theology." This 
from a churchman was great praise, but Dr. Washburn 
could afford it. He was one of the great lights of the 
Church. 

I am amused to remember now how much of my read- 
ing, when I was very young, was polemical. It was not 
intolerant, for I w^as surrounded by those transcendental 
philosophers. Articles by Colenso, Arnold, Temple (now 
Archbishop of Canterburj^), Stanley, the Tracts for the 
Times ^ Pusey and ISTewman, elbowed Carlyle, Goethe, 
and Schleiermacher, Wordsworth, Southey, Byron, and 
Coleridge, with the oncoming dessert of Thackeray and 
Dickens, who are not polemical. Fortunately for me, I 



100 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

had a Shakespeare-loving father, and a mother who read 
poetry aloud with a sweet intonation. I knew all the 
Lake poets earl 3^, and my " polemical " reading was much 
lightened by Childe Harold and Coleridge and Keats. 
I miss now very much that love of poetry which was so 
common among the young girls of fifty years ago. In- 
deed, I miss also the poets. In fact, we all read very 
much, beginning with Jane Taylor's Poems for Infant 
Minds^ and including Thalaha and The Ancient Mariner. 

And yet so illy directed, so carelessly done, was all 
this reading that I once shocked Dr. Bellows by telling 
him I had never read Comus or Milton's prose. How soon 
he repaired that omission by reading Comus aloud to 
us in a masterly manner, and following it up by giving 
us readings from, and almost a lecture on, Wordsworth 
when he was paying us a visit at Keene ! Society is 
like a Cremona violin ; those who play upon it decide 
that the old ones are incomparable. " A crowd is not 
company, faces are but galleries of pictures, and talk is 
but a tinkling cymbal w^here there is no love." " But 
there was then love and liking." Where society is 
founded on the provision that people know each other 
well and like each other, it certainly follows that there 
should be more '' love," or liking at least, than where it 
is merely a matter of display. When society is bought 
it is apt to lose the distinction and the value of the 
company of such men as Dr. Bellows, if, indeed, there 
are many such. 

Certainly the individual was then of more conse- 
quence than his surroundings. There w^as less luxury 
and much more conservatism thirty, and even twenty, 
years ago. Dr. Bellows played his noble part both be- 
fore and after the war with, singular distinction. He 
had the courage of his convictions. It was not an easy 



ME. Bryant's dinners 101 

berth which he filled during the war, for the regular 
army was always against him. General Sherman never 
spoke well of the Sanitary Commission. He thought 
the whole business of taking care of a war belonged to 
the regular army. So it did, if they could have done it; 
but they could not. So it was well that some outside aid 
brought a cup of cold water to the dying soldier. 

Dr. Bellows was fortunate in having for parishioners 
Mr. Bryant, Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft, Mr. and Mrs. G. L. 
Schuyler, Mr. Henry T. Tuckerman, and many such 
people. 

Mr. Bryant, unlike most poets, was a rich man, and 
gave excellent dinners. I remember many a distin- 
guished company in his house in Sixteenth Street, 
charmingly conducted by his daughter. Miss Julia 
Bryant, who knew how to mingle the elements which 
make up a dinner. 

I often thought that his dinners might be compared 
to Kogers's breakfasts in London, so many bright minds 
conspired to make them eloquent. Mr. Bryant and his 
son-in-law, Parke Godwin, w^ere kind to actors, then not 
so often invited into society as they are now; and at 
their houses I met Edwin Booth and his first lovely 
wife. Badeau and Booth were very intimate, and the 
former brought the great tragic actor often to my 
house. I never saw a more perfect union than that of 
the Booths. 

I remember Booth was then playing Othello and lago 
on alternate nights. A select few of us preferred his 
Othello. It was so intensely Venice in all its belong- 
ings that it fitted his romantic Eastern beauty. I re- 
member no picture more vividly than his as he sat on a 
couch reading over his military orders, the great captain 
Othello, in an Oriental robe and sash. And then, as 



102 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEKITY 

lago begins subtly to instil the poison, the careless- 
ness with which Othello heard the first suggestion that 
Cassio had played him false; how, half sighing, and 
turning over his despatches as if he wished those lazy 
days to return, he said, " Oh yes, he went between us 
very often." The temperament of the actor, the dress, 
ail fitted him nobly in this part ; but his lago continued 
to be the world's favorite, and I once asked him the 
reason. 

" Oh," said he, ''my wife dressed me so well for that 
part ; she composed and made that dress." It was a 
superb dress of scarlet with pearl buttons running down 
the jacket. They looked like bullets ; there was a hid- 
den ferocity in that dress. Thomas Hicks painted a 
great picture of him in it. 

Booth's rare smile was most effective in Othello. As 
he heard Desdemona tell her love, it broke over his face 
like a gleam of sunshine on a dark day. 

I saw his Hamlet many times. It was almost our 
only amusement in the first days of the war (he played 
it a hundred times in one season). He was the ideal 
mad prince. As some one said afterwards of Irving's 
Hamlet, " You forgot the player and thought only of 
the prince." His reading in this part was the best thing 
he did. He was again most wonderful with Barrett 
and Bangs in Julius Ccesar. He was the very best Car- 
dinal Wolsey I have ever seen ; how grand and old he 
was! But oh! his King Lear! To have heard Mrs. 
Kemble read that play and to see Booth play it was the 
very poetry of despair. 

Like all geniuses, he did things of which he was un- 
aware himself. The expression on Lear's face in his last 
wild moments, the gleam of recognition, the pleased 
memory, the joy of being still loved, the gratitude — to 



EECOLLECTIONS OF BOOTH 103 

be immediately chased away by the wild torments of 
insanity — I declare I never could see that expression 
that the tears did not rain down ray face. 

And yet, like his fellow-genius General Grant, who at 
that same moment was playing his role so extremely 
well on a distant battle-field, he was no talker and no 
orator ; he could not, or he would not, talk about his 
parts or about Shakespeare. 

He said of his Othello that it was only a sketch, and 
he rather laughed at its being a good one. He liked later 
on to be praised for his Hamlet and his Cardinal Wol- 
sey and his Petruchio ; he said he was satisfied with 
those impersonations. 

He failed utterly as Eomeo; and when his theatre 
burned down and he was temporarily ruined, of all his 
wardrobe nothing was left but one shoe of Romeo's, 
^' left for me to kick myself with," he said. 

I never met him after those days of his youth and 
beauty in society. He became more famous, and was al- 
waj^s much liked and respected ; but I am glad to keep 
apart my little vision of him at this period when he was 
a dream, the realization of what Shakespeare might 
have seen with his mind's eye. He was an exquisitely 
refined person, and had an air of sadness and preoccu- 
pation even then. The sadness of those days, the misery 
which the assassination of Lincoln brought upon us all, 
my own private grief at the time, induce me to skip 
much that would be historical. It has, however, had the 
advantage of a thousand pens — that dreadful epoch 
during and just after the war. 

I must notice one little book. I dare say the gifted 
author has forgotten that he ever wrote it. 

It was Whitelaw Reid's account of a Tour in the 
South with Chief -Justice Chase in 1866. The learned 



104 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

author, destined later on to become an editor and a for- 
eign minister, was then favorably known as '' Agate," a 
correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial. The vigor 
and vivacity of his style had already made him a great 
favorite, but this little brochure probably answered 
more questions and satisfied more people at the North 
than many a more ambitious volume. He travelled 
with the Chief-Justice to New Orleans and across to 
Charleston, saw the returned Confederate officers, all of 
whom said " they were going to get some new clothes " ; 
questioned the negro, and found out what ever}^ one at 
the North wished to know (it had been a terrible dread), 
that there was no danger of a negro insurrection; in 
fact, he opened for us the long-closed South. This rare 
pamphlet is, perhaps, as important historically as it was 
useful at the time. 

Chief- Justice Chase was born in New Hampshire, and 
my father had bought the ground on which our home 
was built of his grandmother, old Mrs. Janet Ealston, 
who lived in Keene, a shrewd Scotchwoman. When 
my father said to her, " Mrs. Ealston, you ask too much 
for this land," she answered, wittily, '' Ah, Mr. Wilson, 
I notice no people gits enough for their land but those 
who asks enough for it "; and she got her price. 

My father, when rusticated from Middlebury College 
for some boyish pranks, kept the village school in Keene 
for one winter, and used to carry a little light-haired boy 
on his shoulder to school through the snow. This boy's 
name was Salmon P. Chase. He wrote it largely on the 
history of his times, and when in after-days we used to 
meet at Washington, and he was everything that was 
distinguished, he always remembered this early friend- 
ship and treated me almost as if I were a relative. 

As Mr. Evarts said of him, "he was always one of 



CHIEF-JUSTICE CHASE 105 

the first three." A very sweet-natured man, I think he 
never was happy as Chief- Justice. He would have pre- 
ferred to be President, as we all hoped he would be. 

With his two beautiful and gifted daughters, Mr. 
Chase, whether Minister, Secretary, or Chief- Justice, 
always kept open a delightful house, and until his health 
failed he was a great pleasure to meet. He had the 
canny Scot in him, as his grandmother had. It gave a 
unique flavor to his wit, and shone in and out behind his 
remarkable genius for affairs in that public service for 
w^hich he was so essentially suited. 

I went to see him in his last days in E'ew York, where 
he was under treatment for some nervous malady, and 
he talked of Keene as if nothing had intervened. " My 
tall schoolmaster," he said, " was the most fascinating 
person I have ever met. I felt a great confidence that 
he would not drop me into the snow. I have not always 
felt that same confidence in men since." 

I suppose that this great man tasted the insincerity of 
human friendship and the ups and downs of fortune and 
the instability of fame as few men ever did, unless we 
may except James G. Blaine, Daniel Webster, Henry 
Clay, and Samuel J. Tilden, all of whom had the Presi- 
dency within their grasp, but it slipped away. And yet 
how often the Presidency has simply meant that a man 
shall be abused, distrusted, and worked to death while 
he is filling the great office, and that he should drop into 
unmerited oblivion when he has left the White House 
(General Grant alone excepted) ! But, then, his fame was 
kept dear by the people. He could not travel through 
the remotest village that the farmer would not leave the 
plough in the furrow, and run for wife and children to 
come and see the man who had saved the nation. Even 
to touch his hand was distinction. 



106 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Indeed, even after the war was over, the most inter- 
esting personage to us all was General Grant, who, of 
all people, hated to be interviewed, and who would not 
be exploited. He was no talker, and unless he was 
strongly interested in or excited about his subject, he 
w^as deficient in fluency ; and yet every new acquaint- 
ance found him remarkable for the transparent lucidity 
of his explanations, and he had a good command of ner- 
vous English ; so, as we all knew that he had talent 
enough, the natural inference was that General Grant 
did not wish to talk. When he did talk it was therefore 
taken as a great compliment to the listener. 

What a contrast to him was General Sherman, one of 
the most renowned talkers that ever lived ! He had an 
immense command of words, almost volubility, and the 
most friendly willingness to talk of his campaigns. This 
soldier by nature, who had an entire scorn of luxury or 
even comfort on the field, slept in a tente dfohri^ or in 
the open air, and had no cumbrous baggage. His menage 
was a roll of blankets and a haversack full of hardtack. 
He declared that he could fall asleep on the hard floor 
or wet ground, or when a battle was raging near him. 
Attention to detail, promptitude, decision, order, and 
unfailing punctuality were part of him, and yet his 
rugged face could unbend in society, wear a most win- 
ning expression ; and he loved the theatre, all amuse- 
ments, and a good dinner. I never knew any carpet- 
knight who could wait for a tardy lady who had for- 
gotten her fan so patiently as he could. He was a 
many-sided man and a perfect gentleman. 

He became renowned as an orator, and his speeches 
at West Point were the most perfect specimens of that 
difficult art — the talking to young men without pat- 
ronage. 



SHERMAN AND GRANT 107 

These two great friends, great military geniuses, who 
were so true to each other and so free from any jealousy 
that they could write two such letters to each other as 
those of March 4, 1864, from Grant to Sherman, dated 
Nashville, Tennessee, and answered by Sherman March 
10, 1864 (every school-boy should learn them by heart) ; 
these two great men, of all our heroes — one a President, 
the other a lieutenant-general — seem to have escaped 
that almost universal concomitant of greatness, ingrati- 
tude and lack of constancy on the part of the fickle public. 

General Grant's tour around the world made him so 
replete with delightful reminiscence that he talked more 
when he came home. I remember dining with him at 
Governor CornelFs in New York, and it was a very dis- 
tinguished dinner. I told him that an English officer 
w^ho had been present at the dinner given him by the 
Duke of Wellington in the Waterloo Chamber told me 
in London that he thought him a veiy learned soldier. 
"Well, I am not," said Grant. "I had neither the 
genius of Sherman nor the learning of Lee or Mac- 
pherson. I only meant to get tliereP 

But the fountain of talk was unsealed on this occasion, 
and he told me of his travels in China and Japan, of the 
vronderful men he had met ever3^where, and the dinner 
with the Queen, of which he said, " I did not sit next to 
her, as I expected to ; she had a prince and a princess 
between us, but she was very agreeable, and talked 
across. Better than all," said he, "I had Fred with me 
everywhere." The affectionate tone of this delightful 
character, the simplicity mingled with greatness, made 
General Grant the idol of the people. His entrance 
into a city made a gala day. " Celebrity is the chastise- 
ment of talent and the punishment of genius." I think 
he never liked it. 



108 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

" I can't talk like Sherman," he used to say, with his 
rare smile ; and, indeed, nobody could. 

I happened to see him twice when his character shone 
out free of adventitious circumstances. The first time 
was at West Point, just after the war was ended, in 
1865. He came to his old Alma Mater, bringing Mrs. 
Grant, without whom life had no charm for him. We 
were in the library. The examination was going on, 
and Professor Bartlett left the room, coming back with 
Grant on his arm. What an intense moment it was to 
us all! The professors rose to receive him. I think 
poor General Grant nearly sank through the floor ; he 
winced as he never had done in the face of the enemy. 
'' Those dreaded professors rising to do me honor I Why, 
I felt all the cadet terror all over me," he afterwards 
said. He was more comfortable when he got outside 
and commenced shaking hands with all mankind and 
womankind, but no one who saw that notable scene can 
forget his modesty. 

Again I happened to be in Washington during his 
second term of ofiice, and with my husband and son 
took the boat for Mount Yernon. To our delight and 
surprise, General and Mrs. Grant, Miss I^ellie Grant, and 
Miss Edith Fish were on board, the two latter young 
school-girls of seventeen. 

When we reached Mount Yernon, finding the Presi- 
dent was expected, we tried to efface ourselves, but Gen- 
eral Grant asked us to dine with him, and especially 
drank wine with my young son, the youngest member 
of the party. Nothing could be so kind as he was, and 
after dinner, as we sat looking at the Potomac, Mrs. 
Grant said, " Oh ! I wish I had a house on the Potomac!" 
" Do you ?" said he. " Well, I can buy one cheap." 
Then they had their little badinage about the improb- 



ADELAIDE EISTOKI 109 

ability of their paying for their purchase out of their 
crops, etc. We came home together, of course, and al- 
though I saw him often, both at the White House and 
at great dinners, and much in private life after, I re- 
member General Grant best on these two occasions. 
He was gifted by nature with a genius for military 
command, but he had also the unmetaphysical character 
of the Roman intellect, and in his private life he was 
all that was sweetest. While Sherman was a Greek, 
with the wit, tact, quickness, and elegance of the Greek 
mind, yet these two great captains loved each other and 
understood each other, and were alike heroes worthy 
to save the sinking ship of State, good husbands, fond 
fathers, and citizens of high renown. Sherman's sensi- 
tive and impressionable mind got him into trouble occa- 
sionally, and he never wished to be President. It was 
fortunate for him that he did not have that " bee in his 
bonnet," as old General Greene, of Ehode Island, used 
to call the desire for the Presidency. 

Adelaide Ristori brought letters to me when she came 
to N'ew York (in 1866 I think it was) from my friend 
Charles Hale, then our Minister to Egypt. 

Virtue, beauty, and genius were this woman's title- 
deeds to fame, and, as one of her poetical biographers 
said justl}^, " Romance presided over her birth, and her 
path was strewn with as many incidents as flowers." 

She brought her noble husband, Capranica, and her 
two children, the beautiful Bianca and her son, with 
her; and she also brought us Myrrha, Gamma, Medea, 
Lady Macbeth, Elizabeth, Mary Stuart, Pia dei Tolomei, 
and Adrienne Lecouvreur. When first asked to add 
Medea to her repertoire, she at first said no ; that she 
could understand all passions but that which led to the 
murder of one's offspring. In the original, Medea mur- 



110 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

ders her children savagely before the audience, bat, 
owing to Eistori's reluctance, Legouve, the author, al- 
tered his situations so that the murder is implied rather 
than consummated, and she made the great tragedy one 
of her successes. 

She was a beautiful woman, of the dark-eyed Italian 
type, a large nose, and the most perfect figure. I re- 
member her dancing the german at a bail at Mrs. 
Eoosevelt's (who was one of the most distinguished 
hostesses of the period) quite as well as the youngest 
debutante, and a most serene and unaffected person she 
was, fond of talking and disposed to be communicative 
about herself. She told me that she was the daughter 
of poor actors, who happened to be at a little Venetian 
city, Cividale del Friuli, when she entered on the re- 
sponsibilities of life ; and at two months of age she was 
brought on the stage in a basket in the play The Neio 
Year's Gift, while at four years of age "La Piccola 
Eistori" appeared in a child's part as an infant phe- 
nomenon. Even then her salary was greater than that 
of her parents. As a girl she inherited from her father 
a great love of music, and Nature gave her a mezzo- 
soprano voice of the finest quality. She was good 
enough to sit down to the piano and accompany herself 
while singing me some of the very interesting Italian 
popular songs of the people. But her grandmother, a 
fine old tragic actress, probabl}^ seeing the genius for 
acting strong in the child, used to take away her guitar 
and shut her up in a trunk, " d la Ginevra," when she 
sang ; so she was quietly ruled out from being a singer. 
This threw her into a deep melancholy, and she would 
only play with her dolls as dead bodies, laying them out 
and surrounding them with candles. This gloomy 
amusement she followed up by a passionate attachment 



ADELAIDE KTSTOJRI 111 

to burying-grounds, and she ascribed some of her deep 
and tragic powers to this early heart-break. 

She became very religious, and while performing in 
Faenza, in 1841, she was so devout that the people 
thought her a budding angel or an incipient saint ; they 
mounted a ladder and looked in on her midnight vigils, 
but only found that she had thrown herself on her bed 
in her clothes. However, they felt such faith in her 
future canonization that they divided one of her dresses, 
which she had left behind her, as a relic. At fourteen she 
was playing Francesca da Rimini, so tall and thin that 
she had to be padded — " cotonnee^' as she said — to look 
like a woman. She worked incessantly under a fine old 
actress, who was most severe with her. She worked 
until she broke down. She got well, however, and in 
1842 began to create parts as a comedienne. As a de- 
lineator of the romantic drama, in Goldoni's master- 
pieces, she held the stage until 1848 in all the great 
cities of Italy. Mr. Lowell saw her in one of these 
years, and could never forget the charm of her comedy, 
especially in Gli Innamorati. 

But she went to Eome, and the young Giuliano del 
Grillo, son and heir to the old Marchese Capranica, fell 
in love with her, and her own tragedy began. She was 
of humble origin and an actress, so the old marchese 
would have none of her. It was most amusing to hear 
her describe her beautiful youthful lover, and then turn 
to look at the fat, elderly, exceedingly comfortable Del 
Grillo husband b}^ her side. 

Rome was beside itself with revolutionary ideas in 
1846. The young Giulano was watched ; the spies were 
thick; but love laughs at locksmiths. They met and 
were married at Cascina, w^hither Del Grillo went as a 
Papal envoy. 



113 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEKITY 

She could play in I Promessi Sposi with a vim after 
this. They remained faithful to each other until death. 

The young wife retired from the stage for a year to 
please her husband and placate his mother, but art re- 
claimed her child, and in 1848, while French bombs 
threatened Rome, she gave three representations to help 
Piscenti, one of her former managers, who had been 
imprisoned for debt. I have forgotten what play she 
appeared in, but I think it was in Cuores ad Aeti, by 
Forti. At any rate, her father-in-law went to see her, 
was completely swamped by her greatness, forgot his 
prejudices in his enthusiasm, and, in fact, took her to his 
heart as the Marchesa del Grillo, but allowed her to 
become once more and forever " Adelaide Eistori " to 
the public. 

Then she began her faithful study of high tragedy. 
She made her debut in Alfieri's masterpiece of Myrrha, 
and unluckily failed ; but she afterwards surpassed all 
other actresses in this part. She became triumphant 
through all Italy, and sighed for Paris, which is now, as 
in antiquity, alone entitled to throw the apple. It is 
the world's tribunal for art. In 1852 Rachel had vis- 
ited Italy; why should not Ristori visit Paris? The 
actress was determined, and in 1855 she was playing 
Francesca da Rimini to a pit full of kings, with Rossi as 
Paolo, and in Paris ! What a triumph ! 

Dumas pere was her first conquest. Scribe paid 
court to the new favorite, and Jules Janin, the clever 
Figaro of the Journal des Debats^ sealed her fate by his 
clever praises. Myrrha followed, la suhlime actrice had 
a furious success, and her triumph was celebrated in 
verse, marble, prose, and music. 

She was most astonished herself. " Why," said she, 
" I played Myrrha to empty benches at Turin, at eighty 



ADELAIDE KISTOKI 113 

centimes a ticket, while here in Paris they will pay ten 
francs and crowd the theatre to see me. Why is that ?" 

Kachel resigned her position as a sooietaire of the 
Theatre Fran^ais, and the throne was offered to Eistori 
by the director, Arsene Houssaye. The Emperor sent 
M. Fould as his advocate, begging her to accept. 

But the Italian tragedienne was true to her flag; she 
would not desert the Italian language and drama. She 
won, and received the imperial decree, authorizing her 
to play at the Theatre Italien for four months. Her 
first season brought her a half -million of francs. 

To see this illustrious woman first play Marie Antoi- 
nette and Maria Stuarda, and then to hear her tell these 
facts with flashing eye was a most dramatic experience. 

The Emperor sent her a beautiful bracelet in form of 
a serpent, the head sparkling with diamonds, which she 
was fond of wearing. Medals were struck in her honor, 
and all the world acknowledged her greatness as a 
tragedienne. The King of Prussia decorated her with 
the Order of Merit for her Deborah. 

She had been emphatically a queen's favorite in Spain, 
and always spoke well of poor Isabella. She saved the 
life of a Spanish soldier, Nicolas Chapado, by her elo- 
quence, kneeling first to ISTarvaez, then to the queen — 
a story she was fond of telling. 

She played, in French, Beatrix at the Odeon ; it proved 
a great success. Then she took Shakespeare to Lon- 
don! She played Lady Macbeth and Ehzabeth, and 
was called the second Siddons. In 1864, she sailed 
for Egypt and played in Cairo, Athens, Constantino- 
ple, giving the tragedies of Alfieri beneath the shadow 
of the Pyramids. 

She came to America with all this glory behind her, 
and was received, both as an actress and as a woman, with 



114 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

most enthusiastic welcome. She was an intelligent, in- 
dustrious, earnest, good woman, with great sensibility 
and most wonderful talents ; but as a successor to Eachel 
she never seemed to me a genius. She rose early ; she 
attended and managed every rehearsal ; she had a most 
excellent company ; she was the strongest and most in- 
defatigable person ever heard of. She used her needle 
cleverly, took care of her theatrical wardrobe ; she was 
reading, writing letters, attending to her daughter (a 
beautiful girl), making calls, going to dinners and balls ; 
yet all her excitements were so reduced to a system 
that she never seemed fatigued. The only woman whom 
I have met who seemed at all like her is Mrs. Potter 
Palmer, of Chicago, and she is very like her. The prac- 
tical was not swallowed up in the ideal in this extraor- 
dinary woman, whom I am happy to have known. She 
never broke an engagement ; she was always punctual ; 
her people adored her. 

Of her parts I liked best her Marie Antoinette. It 
was infinitely affecting, tender, and true. Her beauty 
in it was something astonishing. She must have been 
fifty years of age ; she did not look thirty. And the 
support was admirable. The king was played by an 
actor so good that he is always before me when I read 
of Louis XYI. She told me that she always cried an 
hour or two after playing this part, which shows that 
she was an actress at heart ; but she declared that hard 
work had done more for her than inspiration. She was 
grateful to her father, her grandmother, and her early 
teachers because they were so severe. She never spoke 
of Madalena Pomatelli except as "a great beauty." 
This was her mother ; I suppose a very mediocre ac- 
tress. But she must have been a good woman to have 
had so serious and so good a daughter. Eistori had the 



ADELAIDE RISTORI 115 

temperament of virtue. She was naturally religious, 
firm, temperate, and judicious ; and if not a genius, she 
certainly had incomparable talent. Her dresses were 
studies from all that history and art could do for the 
drama; she redeemed the honor of the Italian stage, 
and opened the door for Salvini, the greatest Othello 
and Hamlet and Samson that the world has seen. 

She made a very large fortune and left her children 
rich. What a fortune to inherit the memory of such a 
mother ! A woman who could not be moved from her 
sublime pedestal of devotion to art, to dut}?^, to religion ; 
who could pass through all the temptations of youth, 
beauty, celebrity, and triumph utterly unscathed ! She 
was nobly patriotic, true to her friend Cavour, kind- 
hearted and philanthropic to a degree. It is hard to 
say which to admire the most : the talent of the actress, 
making famous the woman, or the character of the 
woman, giving depth, solidity, and enduring strength 
to the fame of the actress. 

I cannot leave this celebrated memory without refer- 
ring to her Queen Elizabeth. The play gave us forty 
years of that stormy life. Histori, coming on as a young 
girl, the pretty auburn - haired princess, adroitly grew 
ten years older at every decade by putting on more 
clothes, more jewels, and more paint and whitewash, 
until the lion woman, sinking down to die on the stage, 
was the old Elizabeth who shook the dying countess for 
having deceived her about Leicester's ring. It was a 
superb study. I cannot forget her startling scream as 
she heard of the success of Francis Drake and the de- 
struction of the Spanish Armada. '^Drak!" said she, 
throwing out a long forefinger, as if she would touch 
the absent commander and give him the accolade. It 
seemed that " Drak " could hear that cry ; it had in it 



116 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

all the uncontrollable emotion of the red-haired daugh- 
ter of Henry YIII. 

It is a curious fact that the two greatest actresses 
who came to the United States played in French and 
in Italian to audiences not half of whom understood 
either language. But the genius of artistic and dra- 
matic representation confounded the Tower of Babel. 
Eachel, Ristori, Sara Bernhardt, and Duse would be 
understood in the Choctaw. For them, and such as 
they, the Tower of Babel does not exist. 



CHAPTER VII 

A Glimpse at Literary Boston — Prescott, Emerson, and Agassiz — 
Darley's Picture of Washington Irving and His Friends — The 
Knickerbocker Magazine — Mrs. Botta's Salon — Reminiscences of 
Bancroft and Bryant — A Birthday at the Century Club — Long- 
fellow, 

Although we did not leave home as much in those 
days as residents of l^ew York do now — we had no- 
where to go, unless we made a long, wearisome journey 
to Florida for a cough — we still found time for visits 
to Washington and to Boston. 

I, being a ]N"ew England woman, was true to my Bos- 
ton, and went to ISTahant in summer as well as to Cam- 
bridge in winter. There I saw Prescott and Agassiz, 
and Lowell and Longfellow, and, much later on, the 
youthful Howells, just beginning his successful career ; 
and Mr. and Mrs. James T. Fields, and Dr. Holmes, and 
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, most witty of women. It was 
"the Illuminati"; it was most delightful, and Mr. Pres- 
cott was one of its distinguished members. 

Mr. Prescott was a true son of Boston ; well-born, 
well-bred, of extremely dignified and agreeable man- 
ners, and with a delicate and nobly chiselled face. He 
was a perfect man of the world, fond of society, and 
with not the slightest touch of the pedant about him. I 
saw him frequently and intimately at his Nahant house 
and at the neighboring villa of his daughter, Mrs. Law- 
rence, who was an admirable hostess as well as a beau- 
tiful woman. Although he was past sixty when I first 



118 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

met him, he was still as attractive as a man of thirty 
in dress and manner, and with the added delight of his 
extremely cultivated mind. His infirmity of sight did 
not prevent his getting about alone and eating his din- 
ner with the grace of a diplomatist. If he asked any 
one for the toast or the cream at one of his daughter's 
delicious country teas, it was really a pleasantry and a 
compliment, and he could make his infirmity of sight a 
joke. If the cream-pitcher turned up under his hand, 
he would thank the finder and say, " If it had been a 
bear it would have bit me." He asked my husband and 
myself to his " workshop," as he called his library, and 
showed us the apparatus which is used by the blind — a 
Avire-ruled machine for guiding the hand. 

His library was filled with Spanish books, and with 
documents (acquired at great expense) from the archives 
of Spain ; these were lying all about, arranged in that 
order which is Heaven's first law. He told us that his 
sight would come back curiously at times. He took im- 
mense care of his health, and walked every day around 
a great tree until he had worn a path. Mr. Prescott's 
home relations were delightful. He had married the 
love of his youth, a beautiful Miss Amory. He told me 
he used to look through a window where he could see her 
dance. Surrounded by his family, and with his charm- 
ing daughter next door, this distinguished man passed 
his summer at Lynn, w^orking every day for several 
hours, and then emerging from his library, with none of 
the dust of tlie old folios adhering, bringing with him 
only the aroma of learning. "When I travelled in Spain 
some years since I used as my guide-book Ferdinand 
and Isabella^ his masterpiece; nor do I want a more 
delightful set of books with which to cheat Time of his 
dulness than his entertaining histories. I have an auto- 



PEESCOTT AND EMEKSON 119 

graph of his, " written through the bars," as he called 
his wire net : 

"I am happy to welcome my dear Mrs. Sherwood in my little 
study, and wish she would always come and never go. 

" W. H. Prescott." 

This is more precious than rubies, as testifying to the 
amiable character of this most amiable of men. He had 
enjoyed a great triumph in England on his first visit 
there, and told us much about it. He said Sydney Smith 
had sent him word before he went, saying, " Send Pres- 
cott over here and we'll drown him in turtle-soup." 

"I sent him back w^ord," said this genial-tempered 
man, " that I could swim in those seas." And indeed 
he could. As an elegant American he was a good 
specimen to send to London, as indeed were Everett 
and Motley, who seemed fitted to rub out the carica- 
tures of Uncle Sam with which Punch and other pa- 
pers have amused themselves. 

Mr. Prescott was most fortunate in his biographer, 
for George Ticknor w^as one of the ripest of scholars 
and Prescott's friend of a lifetime. These men were as 
far off as possible from the Concord School and the 
transcendentalists, who were making themselves world- 
famous at the same time. Tom Appleton's witty expla- 
nation that *' the reason there were so many Unitarians 
in Boston was because a man born in Boston did not 
think that he needed to be born again " did not apply 
to Mr. Prescott or to Mr. Ticknor. 

I dare say they looked upon Theodore Parker with 
horror, as he was a "come-outer" even among the 
Unitarians. 

Emerson was "the consummate flower which the 
sturdy root and thorny stem of Puritanism existed to 



120 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

produce." He was a poet, a genius, and had the face of 
an angel. He had gone early to England, and knew 
Carlyle, Wordsworth, Landor, Coleridge, and that fine 
group of literary men. He grew too liberal for the 
Unitarians, and left the parish over which he was set- 
tled to become a lecturer and literary man. He seems 
to have been the first man in America to recognize 
Carlyle, and he spoke of " Craigenputtock," with its 
desolate, feathery hills, as " the spot where the lonely 
scholar nourished his mighty heart." He became the 
Sage of Concord ; around him were Thoreau, Curtis, 
Hawthorne, Ripley, W. H. Channing, Parker, Phillips, 
Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The little agri- 
cultural village began to put forth germs and growths. 
The author of \X\q Humhle Bee gave it a tropical climate. 
The prophet w^as most honored in his own country, and 
pilgrimages were made to this modern Mecca. 

I had heard this great thinker lecture, but had never 
known him personally until about 1858, when I met 
him at a party at Mr. Bancroft's. To my amazement, 
he showed a curiosity to know " who people were." 

James Russell Lowell, who had the discernment to 
read Emerson's character, regarded his head as a well- 
balanced sphere. " One pole on Olympus and t'other 
on 'change " is his witty line describing this prince of 
dreamers, this " simple child and worldly wise, who so 
largely raised the value of real estate in Concord." I re- 
member asking Mr. Emerson if Hawthorne (whom, with 
other young novel- readers, I was then adoring) ever 
went into society. " Oh no," said Emerson. " It would 
take a forty -dowager power to drag him to such a party 
as this." 

His great friend, the devout idealist Alcott, I never 
saw, although I read many of his OrjphiG Sayings. 



EMEESON AND AGASSIZ 121 

Mr. Emerson brought nothing of this Concord atmos- 
phere into society, but a great deal of good Yankee 
curiosity. When I asked for a Massachusetts lady 
whom he knew he looked at me with those penetrating 
eyes that seemed too far off to have recognized any- 
thinof lower than the rino:s of Saturn. 

''Well, marm, how did you happen to have known 
her?" said he. I had to give him my whole lineage be- 
fore he was satisfied. I remember that he quoted Al- 
cott. We were speaking of a certain President, whom 
we did not love, and his large majority. 

" Oh !" said he, " Beelzebub marshals majorities, and 
multitudes ever lie." A famous Orjyhic utterance. 

Mr. Emerson was very learned. He could have been 
the "instructor of academies." Agassiz preferred his 
conversation on natural science to that of any other 
man in America, and the young poets went to him to 
hear about Beaumont and Fletcher, Plato and Boehme, 
Bhagavad Gita, Hafiz and Goethe ; he could talk of them 
alL He said on one occasion, " When nature wants an 
artist she makes Tennyson or Kobert Browning." And 
again, "Paracelsus is the wail of the nineteenth century." 

When I saw Emerson again the mighty intellect was 
in ruins. The memory so deeply stored was wiped out. 
The inductive philosopher was no more; but "that 
mystic past, that miracle sense," which had been pres- 
ent in his essays and poems will last forever. He is to 
many people the seer and the prophet still. 

After seeing Ralph Waldo Emerson I spent one glori- 
ous day at l^ahant with Agassiz, He took us to his lab- 
orator}^, where we saw jelly-fishes galore and heard his 
wise, witty talk, which instructed the American people — 
North, South, East, and West. If ever a man made nat- 
ure give up her secrets, that man was Agassiz. He was 



122 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

large, hearty, and most agreeable. His sympathy 
amounted to enthusiasm. He had polite French man- 
ners, and left you with the impression that you had 
contributed very largely to his stock of information. I 
have known several great men who had this kind of 
flattery. One was Judge Story and another was Gen- 
eral Dix. You always felt rather an awe of yourself 
after these supremely celebrated men had humbled 
themselves before you. It is a characteristic of a great 
heart and a supreme tact. 

Agassiz spent happy days at Cambridge and at Na- 
hant. The nation was listening with hand behind her 
ear, and Nature threw her sea-urchins and starfish and 
every fish suspected of any eccentricity at his feet. He 
gave lectures all over the country, and told me that he 
could invoke sleep when he needed it, even to sleeping 
when standing up. His health seemed to be perfect. 
He gave one the idea of an immense and very agree- 
able boy who somehow had come to know everything, 
not by the usual hard penance of learning it at a school, 
but by intuition. He told me that he had once brought 
a bunch of wild flowers to his mother instead of his 
appointed task, and asked her to tell him all about them. 
As she could not do so, he said, " One day, dear mamma, 
I will tell yo%i all about them." How nobly he kept his 
promise ! Agassiz did not believe in the Darwinian the- 
ory, which was a great comfort to me. 

But to return to JSTew York for a moment. Imagine 
the delight of Darley, the artist, when called upon to 
paint "Washington Irving and his Friends": Prescott, 
with his handsome face; Longfellow, thoughtfully at- 
tentive ; Fenimore Cooper, conscious of his own world- 
wide fame, yet cordially mindful of the higher emi- 
nence of Irving ; behind Irving the happy, smiling face 



MRS. BOTTA S SALON 123 

of Kalph Waldo Emerson, hopeful of all good things ; 
and again the strong, decisive profile of Bancroft in the 
attitude of an attentive listener. This picture of repre- 
sentative \ATiters in America, in history, philosophy, ro- 
mance, and poetry, was also enriched by Bryant's noble 
head, Hawthorne's dreamy face, H. T. Tuckerman's 
scholarly look, and Willis, the Count d'Orsay of the lit- 
erary college, jotting down his impressions. 

This picture was drawn, I think, for the Knickerbocker 
Magazine. I w^ould give a great deal for a copy of it, 
for I have lost the impression which I owed to the kind- 
ness of Lewis Gaylord Clark, then editor of the Knick- 
erbocker Magazine^ to whom I had taken a story called 
The Man in Armor — a story which grew out of my West 
Indian experience. I have the poor little dusty thing 
beside me now ; but this accidental connection with that 
magazine led to the delightful privilege of knowing 
many of the writers, and to my admittance to the liter- 
ary circle of Miss Anna C. Lynch, an American Kahel,* 
our first authoress to hold a salon, my friend for the 
rest of her life. It was a most agreeable circle. If 
there is anything so good now in ISTew York I do not 
know it. Mrs. Botta, after her marriage — for Miss Lynch 
married the Italian physicist Botta early in the fifties — 
continued to be the Eahel, as I have said, of New York 
until her death. At her literary reunions I have met 
not only many of these most agreeable literary men and 
women of our own country, but the historians, authors, 
and artists of England, France, and Italy. Such a grand 
phalanx as would often gather in a single evening ! — 
Christine Mlsson, Salvini, Eistori, Anthony Trollope, 



* Rahel was the wife of Varnhagen vou Ense, and the Queen of 
the German salon. 



124 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Sala, Thackeray, and George P. Marsh; Mr. W. W. 
Story, home from Rome, and General di Cesnola, fresh 
from Cyprus. This was a salon indeed! Everything 
that was fresh and new. Paul du Chaillu, from Africa 
and the land of the gorilla, and Charles Kingsley, with 
his gifted daughter Rose. From time to time a fresh 
arrival — ]^. P. Willis, General Morris, or Lewis Gay lord 
Clark — while in one corner would sit the authoress of 
Queechy and the poetesses Alice and Phoebe Cary, and 
Bryant, Bancroft, Everett, and Emerson. Then to know 
Mr. Bancroft and to have had the entree to his always 
hospitable house was like going behind the scenes with 
the stage-manager after having been taken to the play. 
He knew everything and everybody ; had a most ex- 
haustive habit of reading, and sometimes asked me to 
come and hear the last chapter of his History as he read 
the MS. to his wife and a few friends. He sent me books 
such as then only seemed to come to a great scholar. At 
Newport his knowledge would overflow in the most de- 
lightful manner, as, in talking of the old mill, he would 
tell us how he had waded through a swamp near Taunton 
River to read a runic inscription supposed to have been 
left by the Danes, which he thought would throw light 
on it. He waded his way through water, forced his 
way through scrub, and was often impeded by a lack of 
foothold, but still never lost his grip on the subject ; and 
he w^as honest enough to say that he had gained no light 
on the subject of the origin of the old mill. He con- 
cluded that it is simply a windmill, built by an early 
settler of Newport. 

Mr. Bancroft, unlike Yarnhagen von Ense, whom he 
was fond of quoting, never lost his pleasure in society. 
He said that every ten years a man should move nearer 
the sun. He moved from Boston to New York, from 



REMINISCENCES OF BANCEOFT 125 

JNTevv York to Washington; was Secretary of the Kavy ; 
afterwards American Minister to England. His party 
having gone out of power, he retreated to his books 
for the day, but spent his evenings in societj^ The 
energetic historian's lamp was lighted at five on winter 
mornings, and when called to breakfast he had already 
done a noble day's work. Later on Mr. Bancroft became 
our Minister to Germany, and was complimented by 
Bismarck on his perfect German. 

He seemed never to forget anything, nor to need any 
other amusement than that which he could always pro- 
vide for himself. He rode horseback daily, and never, 
until he was eighty, had he even been troubled with a 
headache. This was one evening at Washington, when 
I heard him complain of a dizziness in the head. He 
was a very peculiar man, and had some stiff mannerisms. 
His career had been not unlike that of Everett. He 
went to Gottingen as a young man from his father's par- 
sonage. He acquired his tendency for historical research 
from Heeren, Eichhorn, and Schlosser. For several years 
he was at the head of the Round Hill Academy for boys 
at Northampton, where he had for one of his pupils the 
witty Tom Appleton, and for his undermaster Dr. Cogs- 
well, afterwards the learned first curator of the Astor 
Library. He must have been a severe master, for " Un- 
cle Tom Appleton" used to tell stories of his school 
days and say, " Mr. Cogswell, whom I loved, and Mr. 
Bancroft, whom I didn't." But Mr. Bancroft grew ex- 
ceedingly amiable in his old age, as men seldom do. 
He was always most charming to me and kind to 
every one. 

It was an epoch in my life when I first heard Charles 
Sumner. This most honored man of Boston was deliv- 
ering his bold and fiery invectives against slavery in the 



126 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

early fifties, and came nearer to Webster as an orator 
than any one I remember. He was fine-looking, and had 
an English manner. I came very near being in the Sen- 
ate when he was felled by Preston Brooks, which as- 
sault laid him on a bed of sickness for months, and from 
which he did not recover for years. This undeserved 
misfortune evoked for him a cosmopolitan sympathy. 
The last time I remember seeing him was at a dinner 
of Governor Morgan's, given to General Grant after he 
was elected but before he was inaugurated. Eoscoe 
Conklino: was at that dinner, and I remember thinkino^ 
how much Conkling resembled Coriolanus in Shake- 
speare's immortal sketch of that passionate hero, and 
again as he appears in Beethoven's Coriolan^ where the 
music makes you think of the stamp of an armed heel. 
Conkling was impressive. 

The American is said to become full-flavored, and in 
time a most all-round man, through the polish which 
Europe can impart. Mr. Sumner had behind him all 
that Boston and Cambridge could give before he went 
to Europe. He had a great brain and a great soul, but 
he had no sense of humor. It may be because of this 
limitation that he was never a popular man. But he 
rescued us from a helpless state of degradation at a 
trying hour. His services should never be forgotten, 
particularly the noble speech delivered in 1869, which 
fitly rounded his great career. 

Another genius whom I met at Mrs. Botta's was Fitz- 
James O'Brien, the young Irish poet, author of A Dia- 
mond Lens^ which, next to the stories of Bret Harte 
(which came ten years later), was the most surprising 
short story that ever startled the reading American 
pubhc. Fitz-James O'Brien followed up his successes 
by delightful poems, and his Monody on the Death of 



MRS. BOTTA S LITERARY QUALITIES 127 

Kane was and is worthily remembered. He was a fas- 
cinating conversationalist, a rather handsome, dashing, 
well-dressed young Irish gentleman, very much courted 
in society for a brief hour. He went to the war, fought 
bravely, and surrendered his young life gracefully and 
well after the second battle of Bull Eun. 

It is a thousand pities that Mrs. Botta had not had 
the French autobiographical spirit, for she could have 
given us immortal sketches of the historical characters 
who for forty years went in and out of her hospitable 
door. She had sentimentalists and genuine thinkers 
among her guests. She could have given an unpar- 
alleled chronicle of that early dawn which led up to 
Harper* s Magazine^ the Atlantic Monthly, and the thou- 
sand and one successors of those famous monthlies. 
She herself had been glad to write for the Democratic 
Magazine at ten dollars a page in her youth ; and al- 
though she never cared much for society, she could 
have given a tolerably faithful chronicle of societ}^ from 
1850 to 1880, before that respectable and conservative 
epoch had harnessed four horses to its carriage. 

She wrote well herself, both prose and poetry, and 
with great industrj^ compiled a book of the History of 
Literature. 

But how much greater would her fame be now if she 
had had a Boswell or a Samuel Pepj^s in her disposition : 
we love the minor details. One would meet all the 
most distinguished men and women at Mrs. Botta's, per- 
haps four times during the winter, at some reception 
given to one great man or woman, the author of the last 
novel or poem. I remember T. Buchanan Kead reciting 
his Sheridan'' s Ride at one of these, and I remember 
a charming breakfast with Booth, with Ristori, and with 
Salvini there. I also remember delightful interviews 



128 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

with Charles Kingsley, as he was twice her guest. She 
" kept house " admirably, and her little breakfasts and 
dinners were perfect. 

She compiled during the war a very valuable book of 
autographs and prints, which was sold for the benefit 
of the Sanitary Commission — or, at least, she intended 
that it should be, but the sudden peace at Appomattox 
Court House and the overflow of money for the San- 
itary Commission came before she had finished it, and 
she gave the money to France to establish an art schol- 
arship. 

As a woman she was a model character, ready to drop 
her own personality entirely, unselfish, agreeable, patient, 
sweet — the very person to hold a salon ; with liberal 
opinions, but of a most respectable and modest character. 
She was an evangelical moralist in conduct, but would 
go to hear everybody preach — from archbishops of- the 
Eoman Church to Henry Ward Beech er. She was an 
"intelligent social being," but I do not think she ever 
asked herself what she did believe. She was determined 
to see and allow for both sides of the shield. She was 
interested in all the ultra views of the principal thinkers 
of her epoch. She liked to bring them all together. 
Everything that belonged to goodness, virtue, and hu- 
manity was dear to her. Everything she could do to 
advance the interests of art and literature, everything 
to help a friend in distress, to make the world happy 
and better, to promote sociability and the recognition of 
talent, this dear and distinguished woman did, during a 
long life. A thousand pities that she did not write her- 
self down every day of her life ! 

There one would meet her early friend Mr. Charles 
Butler, the Hon. John Bigelow, Minister to France and 
biographer of Franklin, who had helped her to rise; 



A BIETHDAY CELEBRATION 139 

there would come Charlotte Cushman and her faithful 
Emma Stebbins, the sculptor, and Harriet Hosraer, who 
gave us the " Puck " and many another lovely marble. 
It was a salon after the French fashion. 

Before I leave the literati, let me record a most event- 
ful day — an evening in 1864 — the celebration of the 
birthday of Mr. Bryant at the Century Club. He was 
seventy — a fine-looking, Homeric sage with a big white 
beard, a most venerable-looking personage, with brilliant 
eyes and a manner which, when he chose, could be smil- 
ing and agreeable, and which, when he did not choose, 
could be grave and repellent. The Century Club loved 
him to a man, and their elegant rooms in Fifteenth Street 
were wreathed with violets, immortelles, evergreens, and 
roses on that evening. Mr. Bryant and Mr. Bancroft 
entered together, and sat on a dais surrounded by such 
lights as Emerson, Holmes, Willis, Street, Tuckerman, 
Boker, Eead, Stoddard, and Ba^^ard Taylor. At the 
conclusion of some well-chosen music Mr. Bancroft ad- 
dressed Mr. Bryant, and congratulated him and the world 
that the poet's eye was undimmed, his step as elastic as 
it was in his youth, his mind as strong, and his brain as 
prolific. Mr. Bryant answered in a very witty disser- 
tation upon the folly of felicitating any one on being 
" seventy years old." He referred " to the beauty of 
youth, its quick senses, its perfect and pearly teeth, its 
flowing hair." He drew a graphic picture of what the 
world would be if it were made up of old men, and ex- 
pressed his thankfulness that there were youths and 
maidens to laugh and be merry. 

Yet those two wonderful old men were destined to 
live one of them to eighty -four, and the other to nearly 
ninety, while many a youth and maid who listened had 
gone to an early grave. 



130 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Mr. Bryant spoke of Pierpont, Longfellow, Sprague, 
Holmes, Dana, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Lowell, and Willis, 
and wound up with a very charming compliment to Mr. 
Bancroft. Then followed letters and poems from Mrs. 
Julia Ward Howe, Whittier, Lowell, Halleck, and one 
read by Oliver Wendell Holmes, which was full of fine 
points. 

Then came the artists with a volume of sketches. I 
remember Cropsey, Stone, Huntington, Lang, Kensett, 
Hennessy, Benson, Durand, Leutze, Darley, Hays, Mc- 
Entee, Yaux, Hicks, Launt Thompson, Church, Hazel- 
tine, Coleman, Hall, and Cranch. 

It was a delightful ovation, and calculated to give to 
every listener and spectator a love of literature and 
learning. It occurred in a gloomy moment of our civil 
war, but it was enlivening as taking our minds away 
for a moment from the horrors which were breaking 
our hearts. In the language of Bayard Taylor's noble 
hymn, written for the occasion : 

"One hour be silent, sounds of war ! 

Delay the battle he foretold, 
And let the Bard's triumphant star 

Pour down from heaven its mildest gold! 
Let Fame, that plucks but laurel now 

For loyal heroes, turn away. 
And mine to crown her poet's brow 

With the green garland of the bay." 

My memories of Longfellow shall be confined to three 
interviews. One on the Rhine, when he was travelling 
with his daughters, and I could but remember The Pil- 
grims of the Bhine and his own pretty prose volume 
embodying his love affair. Again, at the house of 
George Abbot James, at Nahant, where, in the late 
seventies, I had the honor of meetiug at lunch Long- 



LONGFELLOW 131 

fellow, Mr. Tom Appleton, Mr. Story, Mr. William 
Amory, senior, and the late artist Hamilton Wilde. 

Mr. Longfellow, already old, and always silent, was 
beautiful that day, and as charming as his gentle nature 
prompted him to be. Mr. William Amory told us the 
long, romantic story of the famous law trial on which 
he was associated with Webster. It concerned the 
murder of an old Mr. White by two nephews, one of 
whom killed himself in prison, and it was upon this 
occasion that Mr. Webster uttered the famous dictum, 
" Suicide is confession." I am ashamed to say that the 
rest of us did all the talking, while the venerable poet 
sat and mused. He was engaged on the great poem 
which appeared in Harper'' s soon after, in which he de- 
scribes the process of making pottery. But what he 
did say was so much to the point that it seemed like 
nuggets of gold. 

A part of Mr. Longfellow's charm was his way of 
listening; another charm was his beauty, which was re- 
markable. His kindness to young authors has passed 
into a proverb, and he was a natural-born gentleman. 
Another beautiful old man was Mr. William Amory. 

While Mr. Amor}^ talked, which he did wonderfully, 
Mr. Longfellow listened as if to music. When he had 
finished his reminiscences of AYebster, Mr. Longfellow 
whispered behind his hand, " It is like hearing Atticus 
praise Cicero ; he is the best talker in Boston." Mr. 
Tom Appleton was wildlj^ funny, and kept us all laugh- 
ing, including Mr. Longfellow, who greatly admired his 
brother-in-law. Mr. Appleton was amusing us b}^ a 
witty account of how Mr. Longfellow had been bored 
and swindled by an adventurer and adventuress. To 
all of which Mr. Longfellow only said, smiling, "Tom 
is a poet, you know ; also an artist and a romancer." 



132 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Mr. Story dropped a few pearls. It was an exquisite 
day at one of the most lovely houses on the sea. Every 
one was cordial, and as Mrs. James put a shawl over Mr. 
Longfellow's shoulders he said, " The world is in tune." 
He helped to make it so. 

The third interview was at his own house, where he 
thanked me for my translation of Carcassonne, which 
he said Bret Harte had sent to him, and which he in- 
corporated in his volume. Poems of Places. There was 
something in his praise which the heart does not will- 
ingly let die. Yale, 



CHAPTER VIII 

My First Visit to England — Chester Cathedral — Sunshine in London 
— Westminster Abbey and the British Museum — English Art — 
At the English Dinner-table — Our American Hospitality an In- 
herited Virtue — Oxford, Kenilworth, and Stratford-on-Avon — 
The English Attitude towards America. 

In 1869 I went to England for the first time. I had 
no mission, political, religious, or literary. I repre- 
sented nobody but myself. When I found the English 
people kind, courtly, well-bred, and especially polite on 
the ground that we were Americans^ I could not but be 
won. " Remember, you are taking the reflex w^ave of 
the war," said one of my friends, who was not so much 
fascinated as I was. E'o matter what I took, it was 
very good, and " mine own." 

We went for the delicious purposes of travel. We 
wished to realize the reading of a lifetime ; to see 
the Tower and Westminister Abbey and Eastcheap ; to 
hear Bow Bells ; to see the Queen ; to look at Madame 
Tussaud's waxvA^orks. l^othing was too low or too loftj^ 
for our omnivorous appetites. One of us had travelled 
before, but the other had not. But we both enjoyed 
alike her hedgerows, her golden pheasants trooping 
through the grass, her deer hiding in the ferns, her 
magnificent old oaks, her lordly residences, and her 
rose-embowered cottages. 

It was a gracious June day, a red-letter day in my hum- 
ble annalsjwhen we found ourselves sailing up the Mersey. 



134 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

We had had a glorious view of the romantic Irish coast 
the evening before and all the morning, and I thought 
it a fine sight when Liverpool, proud commercial town, 
lay before me. I did not find Liverpool ugly. Her 
stately public buildings, broad streets, public squares, 
and noble statues redeem her from the charg^e ; and 
after a bath, a nap, and an excellent dinner at the com- 
fortable Adelphi we took a drive to a park in the en- 
virons, w^hich we found charming. They say the first 
cathedral you see remains with you forever as the ca- 
thedral of the world. Perhaps this first glimpse of an 
English June and of a European park so favorably im- 
pressed me because it was the first, but I am convinced 
it was charming; so w^as the fresh-looking, pleasant- 
spoken English lady whom we met walking in the park, 
and who so kindly and even learnedly answered our 
questions about the new trees and flowers. And this 
English lady, who so agreeably surprised us by her af- 
fability and courtesy, was a type of all our accidental 
acquaintances. " His speech bewrayeth him," and our 
accent generally brought out, " I see you are Ameri- 
cans "; or if not, we had ' but to saj^ so, and our ques- 
tions w^ere answered with a ready politeness which it 
is but fair to say English people do not seem to show 
to each other. I suppose the great differences of rank 
necessarily bring about a certain stiffness. We took our 
first bath in antiquity at Chester, where we spent a Sun- 
day. The service in that venerable cathedral — those 
boy voices in the choir — shall I ever hear anything like 
it this side the golden gates ? 

Time should be imaged with a paint-brush instead of 
a scythe ; he knows how to wield the former even bet- 
ter than the latter. What he has adorned let no man 
attempt to copy. I dare say those ruined cloisters were 



MY FIEST VISIT TO ENGLAND 135 

very commonplace in their youth ; now time has so 
judiciously colored them, gnawed them, hung them with 
ivy and mosses and lichens, that they are beautiful, with 
a tender, perennial loveliness. Wandering through the 
cathedral, we found, strange to say, a memorial stone to 
one Thomas Phillipse, who was much praised for having 
remained loyal during the " late rebellion in his Majes- 
ty's colonies of North America, by which he lost much 
valuable land and all his riches," etc., etc. Thomas 
Phillipse lost the goodly town of Yonkers, on the 
Hudson, and many acres besides, and gained the ugly 
name of Tory over here ; but there he lies in the odor 
of sanctity in Chester Cathedral, which is some com- 
pensation. 

We went up to London through Shrewsbury, bought 
some " Shrewsbury cake," and thought of Falstaff fight- 
ing an hour by Shrewsbury clock. As we were talking 
and laughing over the former, a companion of ours in 
the railway carriage, who proved to be an English man- 
ufacturer, and who had been talking of America to us, 
said, " And so you know Shakespeare over there, and 
Byron too?" Our national vanity got another shock 
after this from a young lady who asked us if we had 
ever heard the music of Mendelssohn and Beethoven. 
However, our friend the manufacturer was extremely 
kind. He showed us the " Wrekin " in Shropshire, well 
known to all ballad -singers by the song "Bound the 
Wrekin," which he said embodied a Shropshire custom. 
]^ot being a Shropshire man himself, he told us that the 
Shropshire people thought the world of themselves and 
were the most self-sufiicient people in England. 

We glided past the smoky chimneys of Wolverhamp- 
ton, and finally, after a railway journey of four or five 
hours, rich in pictures to us, reached London. 



136 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

I was awakened my first morning in London by the 
brilliant strains of the band of the Coldstream Guards, 
who were marching, as they do daily, from guard 
mounting to St. James's Palace, where they play de- 
lightfully. I should like to stop and say something 
about the precision and brilliancy of this band, but I 
forbear, lest my geese be accused of being all swans. 

There was a bright sun shining. Buckingham Palace 
was in front of our windows, and shortW the well-ap- 
pointed equipages, unsurpassed in the world, began to 
drive by. At one o'clock we went to Rotten Row to 
see the equestrians. It is a pretty sight, were it only 
for the horses. At first we were very much disappoint- 
ed in English beauty, but after a while the pretty faces 
and majestic figures began to reach us. The men are 
magnificent — the young men tall, well formed, and ad- 
mirably dressed ; the old men positively beautiful, with 
their fresh complexions, white hair, and admirable 
neatness. Nothing struck me more than this, and we 
might copy it to advantage here. As an Englishman 
grows older he becomes more and more careful in his 
dress. 

To say how London opened itself to us in the next six 
Tveeks would be to write an encyclopaedia. First itself 
— its illimitable extent; its magnificence; its gay, courtly, 
rich life ; its historical points ; its inexhaustible stores of 
museum, picture-gallery, library, church, abbey, tower, 
everything. What a city it is! And this was the 
gloomy, foggy, melancholy city which every American 
had told me to avoid, to hurry through, and get to 
Paris ! I have now seen them both, and I find London 
in June superior in attraction to Paris in any month, 
beautiful, gay capital that it is. I must acknowledge 
that we were in England in an exceptional summer as 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY 137 

to weather. The weather was brilliant, warm, and 
clear. Had it rained all the time my enthusiasm might 
have been dampened. 

One day we consecrated to the venerable abbey, of 
course. E"o amount of description can render this 
threadbare to us. I gazed with as much emotion on the 
beautiful profile of Mary Queen of Scots as if I were 
the first person who had ever wept over her " strange, 
eventful history." Nothing is disagreeable here but the 
old vergers, who trooped us round like sheep, and who 
gave us the most familiar historical facts with great de- 
liberateness, as if they feared we should "dilate with 
the wrong emotion." I was pleased to see a full-length 
statue of Mrs. Siddons in Westminster Abbey. Since 
the Komish Church denies Christian sepulture to actors, 
it was pleasing to see this proof of the superior liberal- 
ity of her English daughter. I stopped a moment be- 
fore the bust of Thackeray. He was the only one of 
those immortals whom I had seen, and I rejoiced as I 
looked upon the speaking marble that I had known and 
listened to that great genius. 

Westminster Abbey is thoroughly Saxon ; its archi- 
tecture suggests a forest. Its stones seem to have 
been dug from primeval quarries; those dark rafters 
hewn from Saxon oak, smoked perhaps by druidical 
sacrifices. Those Gothic lines in their upward flight 
tell us that nature is herself a church, even as she 
is a tomb. Westminster Abbey is nature crystallized 
into a conventional form by man, with his sorrows, his 
joys, his failures, and his seeking for the Great Spirit. 
It is a frozen requiem, with a nation's prayer ever in 
dumb music ascending. 

To look at and properly appreciate the British Mu- 
seum is the work of a lifetime. We gave it one day — 



138 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

just enough to set our teeth on edge. There I remem- 
ber a letter of Sir Walter Scott denying emphatically 
the authorship of Waverley. I afterwards had the pleas- 
ure to meet Mr. Jones, the curator of this magnificent 
place, and I begged him to hide that away, for it is not 
pleasant to see Walter Scott's name appended to a lie. 
" Oh ! he was a writer of fiction^ you know," was his 
answer. 

The National Gallery we visited on a private day, 
thanks to the courtesy of Sir John Bowring, whose ac- 
complished wife and daughter we found copying pict- 
ures with great ability. This accomplishment, so rare 
here, is an almost universal one in England ; all the 
educated Tvomen sketch well, and some paint admi- 
rably. The Hogarths interested me immensely. I had 
no idea he had such a charm of color. His pictures are 
as fresh to-day as when they were painted. I looked long 
and earnestly at the Turners, and found that I could get 
to understand them after a w^hile. But Turner is like 
classical music and Browning's poetry — he requires 
study. The valuable Raphaels, Correggios, and other 
treasures of this glorious gallery have been too often 
described for me to add a w^ord. The water-color gal- 
leries were our next great delight. We found these 
pictures exquisitely beautiful and choice. The Eng- 
lish landscape lends itself naturally to water -color. 
When I afterwards paid a visit to an English country 
seat and saw, as I sat at breakfast, the old family 
chapel hung with ivy, just framed by the window, I 
said, *^ There you have a water -color arranged to 
your hand." I imagine this lack of neatly finished ob- 
ject is the reason we have so few water-colorists in the 
United States. Our grand distances and atmospheric 
effects, the absence of mullioned windows hung with 



SIGHTS OF LONDON 139 

ivy and of other architectural beauties, undoubtedly 
stint us as to water-colors and therefore make oil* the 
most convenient medium. Our American landscape- 
painters — Kensett, Church, Gifford, Bierstadt — have no 
superiors in Europe in oils, if, indeed, they have many 
equals. 

I saw the yearly exhibition at the Eoyal Academy. 
Of it, I remember one of Landseer's — a curious picture 
— eagles attacking swans, a bloody, cruel, unequal light. 
Then I saw a " Yanessa," by Millais, the deserted love 
of Dean Swift — another unequal fight. She was repre- 
sented a tall, proud, unhappy-looking creature, a beauty, 
and in the handsomest brocade that ever was woven or 
painted. That brocade alone should have insured a 
large female attendance at this exhibition. 

Westminster Hall I remember with peculiar pleasure, 
and also the richly decorated St. Stephen's Chapel, under 
the House of Commons, of no use to anybody, but as 
rich as an illuminated missal. I was afterwards shut up, 
as becomes my dangerous character, in a wired den over 
the House of Commons — and heard Mr. Gladstone, Mr. 
Disraeli, Mr. Lowe, and Dr. Ball ; also some men of lesser 
note. Mr. Gladstone speaks with singular clearness and 
elegance, and I noticed none of that hesitancy so often 
attributed to English speakers. Disraeli had just been 
defeated for the premiership, 

A permission to the House of Lords was not so easily 
obtained, for it was the height of the debate on the Irish 
Church Bill, and the peeresses demanded their right to 
every one of the few available seats. However, that 
came in time, and I was so fortunate as to hear Earl 
Granville, the Lord Chancellor, Lord John Eussell, and 

* This was my opinion in 1869. 



140 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

some others, on an interesting subject — that of life peer- 
age. There was a desire, as I was told by a member of 
the House of Commons, to infuse some new life into the 
'^ Lords " by the introduction of a limited number of life 
peers, men who did not desire or who had not the wealth 
to aspire to '' founding a family." The opponents of the 
case quoted some good things from English history, 
of men who had desired title simply that they might 
give it to a son, and the question of life peerage was 
lost. 

The House of Lords, architecturally, is a magnificent 
room, and the dignity, quiet, and repose of the scene 
made me unwillingly acknowledge that the Senate of 
the United States might possibly improve its manners. 
Perhaps in our desire for simplicity, absence of title, or 
badge of office we may have thrown over too much. 
The drives out of London shared, of course, in our pleas- 
ures. Hampton Court, Windsor, Richmond, the Crys- 
tal Palace at Sydenham, came in their turn. I walked 
through a half-mile of roses at a rose show at Sydenham, 
and saw that imperial flower for the first time, for we 
cannot grow such roses here. The rose in America is 
dwindled and thin compared with the English rose. It 
has suffered from transplantation, as the human animal 
did for two centuries. Now the human animal is be- 
ginning to grow broad and rosy and show his English 
origin. I hope the roses may too. 

Of the English dinner-table we had a pretty fair ex- 
perience. Had our indebtedness to English hospitality 
been limited to the dinners alone, we should have re- 
turned overwhelmed with a sense of unrequitable favors 
bestowed ; but when all these dinners were followed up 
by other kindnesses, we owned ourselves hopelessly bank- 
rupt. For every letter a dozen doors flew open; for 



ENGLISH HOSPITALITY 141 

every friend you make you sow dragons' teeth for innu- 
merable other friends, and each one is kinder than the 
last. Some of my new friends spoke handsomely of 
American hospitality. I was compelled to say, "It 
must be an inherited virtue." 

They can be more hospitable than we, these fortunate 
peojDle. They have a far more highly organized system 
of domestic service ; they have immense wealth ; they 
have that regular, graduated society wherein every man 
and woman knows his or her place ; and whatever we, 
as republicans, may say as to the so-called snobbery of 
English people, I have seen something like it at home. 
It is better to pa}^ court to a queen (who to them is 
abstract England) or to a duke with a " long pedigree " 
than to worship, as we too often do, some unworthy per- 
son whose wealth is his sole passport into society. I 
believe that a habit of respect is good for the human 
race — " It blesseth him that gives and him that takes," 
and it produces in England such manners in the trades- 
people, servants, innkeepers, and, in fact, in all who serve 
you, that I would fain become a student and a copyist of 
the better specimens, that I might become in my turn a 
teacher "of the same" to the dominant race who drive 
our carriages and rule our households. I do not wonder 
that American women like Europe and are happier there 
than here. Women are more sensitive than men in this 
matter of respectful attendance ; and they receive so 
little of it here from our so-called servants that the per- 
fect deference and good breeding of that class in the 
older countries is a happiness in itself. 

We reluctantly tore ourselves from the delights of 
Mlsson and the opera at Covent Garden, and all the 
theatres, and from the parks and drives and dinners of 
London, for fresh fields and pastures new. We wanted 



143 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEKITT 

to see Oxford, Stratford-on-Avon, "Warwick, Kenilworth, 
York, Edinburgh, and all that glorious company. 

Oxford we saw out of term - time. There were no 
gowns and caps walking about, no races on the Isis. 
But what a regal old town it is ! How we enjoyed the 
architecture — the quaint old gargoyles, the delicious gar- 
dens of Merton, Magdalen, and St. John's ! How heavy 
the air was with the perfume of the lime-trees, then in 
full bloom ! Nowhere in England is the turf more green, 
the English landscape purer or more characteristic. 
The air is eloquent with learning and splendid names. 
We drove to Blenheim and enjoyed its magnificence, 
tried to realize that we were in Woodstock Park ; but 
here tw^o sets of reminiscences clashed, and it was hard 
to define where Fair Rosamond ended and the stormy 
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, began. We drove home 
by Godstow Abbey, where the frail favorite ended her 
career ; and we finished the day by a visit to a sweet 
English rectory right out of Birket Foster, all strawber- 
ries and roses and diamond-paned windows. Our host 
was full of the legends of the spot, and told me he had 
an apple in his garden called the "Fair Eosamond," 
which shows (for he was a divine) how meritorious a 
thing it is to be pretty. 

From Leamington we drove over to Stratford-on-Avon, 
on one of the loveliest summer days I remember, and 
lunched in Washington Irving's parlor at the "Eed 
House." We afterwards walked to Shakespeare's house, 
where we found five Americans before us. We were not 
surprised, though perhaps our national vanity was a little 
gratified, when the sensible old lady who acts as custo- 
dian took down an American edition of Shakespeare and 
told us how highly the English scholars appreciated the 
work of our Shakespearian scholar, Richard Grant White. 



143 

We attempted to walk to the church where Shake- 
speare lies buried, but the heat overcoming one lady of 
our party, we sought shelter on a friendly door-step in 
the shade, while the gentlemen went back for carriages. 
The door behind us softly opened and revealed the feat- 
ures of an elderly lady, who kindly invited us to enter, 
saying, " I am sure the rector of the parish would not 
like to see ladies reduced to sitting on his door-step. 
Pray walk in." We accepted the gracious invitation, 
and were soon rewarded by the presence of the rector, 
a good-looking, well-bred man. He told us that of all 
the visitors to Shakespeare's tomb the Americans con- 
stituted one-sixth ; that they were by far the most inter- 
ested in the visit. He preached every Sunday in the 
famous church where Shakespeare's bust and body are 
enshrined ; and he knew Miss Bacon well, but was, I 
thought, a little astonished that she lodged at a shoe- 
maker's. He gave me some local details of the place, 
and offered us refreshments with true English hospi- 
tality. 

The old church is delightfully situated close to the 
banks of the Avon. We Avent in, read the inscription : 

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear !" 

and looked at that wonderful bust which gives us all we 
can see of the most astounding genius the world has 
ever known. 

We drove away silently, too full of delicious reverie 
to talk. Nothing roused us till our coachman said, two 
or three miles from Stratford, " Charlecotes, the seat 
of Sir Thomas Lucy ; now the property of Mr. Lucy. 
Strangers not permitted to enter." So the family keep 
up the traditional inhospitality. We allowed our eyes 
to enter, however, and saw through the barred gate the 



144 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

beautiful long, low Elizabethan house, and some of the 
finest elms in England. We drove home by Stone- 
leigh Abbey, another charming specimen house, where 
are some interesting relics of Lord Bj^ron, but we were 
not able to stop and see them. The owner, Mr. Leigh, 
however, permits his house and treasures to be seen at 
certain hours by the public. 

Kenilworth, Warwick Castle, Guy's Cliff, afford an- 
other day's drive from Leamington ; and I insisted on 
going through the old town of Coven tr}^, for the sake 
of Godiva and Peeping Tom, whose luckless efB.gy is 
carefully arranged at a window. But, alas ! Coventry 
is a modern, prosperous manufacturing town ; and had it 
not been for a w^onderful old church we should have 
been wofully disappointed. At Warwick Castle, where 
are the two best Vandykes of Charles L, I saw the only 
relic of Oliver Cromwell which I could find in England. 
It was a cast of his face after death. 

Kenilworth is a dreadful disappointment. It is too 
much of a ruin. You can scarcely, even with Sir Walter 
in your hand, reconstruct that famous banquet-hall, of 
which the floor and the roof are gone. I found Amy 
Robsart's staircase. She is the most real person con- 
nected with Kenilworth, 

York Minster was one of my great joys. It is the 
only cathedral I have seen in England or on the Conti- 
nent that can be seen. It has no ugly, unsightly, intru- 
sive buildings between you and it. It stands majesti- 
cally in its own green park, glorious, complete — a poem 
and a history in itself. 

We could never become accustomed to the beauty of 
England — the finish, the perfection of the whole thing, 
all so agreeable to an eye used to our own incomplete- 
ness. We have not been touched up by time yet ; and, 



ENGLISH PEOPLE IGNORANT OF THE UNITED STATES 145 

indeed, where will be our old cathedrals, our Warwick 
Castles, to touch up? We can never have the green 
turf or the lovely flowers; our torrid summers and 
frigid winters forbid it. We are a vast country with 
few people ; they are a small country with many peo- 
ple. The}^ can afford to have their railway embank- 
ments sodded, their little stations each a flower garden. 
With us those enormous public works must remain for- 
ever rough, great scars on the face of nature. We must 
get our beauty in other things, and leave to England her 
peerless enamel of green grass, brilliant flowers, her gray 
ruins, and graceful ivy. 

I was amused, sometimes a little offended, to find how 
little English people knew of the United States. It 
seemed impossible to believe that two steamers a week 
ran between Liverpool and New York,^ each freighted 
to the water's edge ; and yet the English ladies would 
ask me if we " ever had ice-cream in New York," if we 
" had frequent fires because it was built of wood," etc. ; 
and they would smile incredulously when I said it had 
been against the law for forty years to build a wooden 
house in New York. And the worst of it is, they do not 
care to know much in the social way about the United 
States. The stream of thought flows steadily from 
England here, not from here there. They are very 
kind, very friendly, interested in a general way, and 
consider us a great, wonderful, unknown sort of Austra- 
lia, and that is all. 

One thing they do respect and admire in us — the 
way we are paying our national debt ; but they cannot 
understand (and who could explain to them ?) the curi- 
ous combinations brought about by our system of poli- 

* This was in 1869. 



146 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

tics and by our republican institutions. " Who are your 
best people ?" was a favorite and unanswerable question. 
It is a strange and significant fact that Americans who 
travel in Europe are more amazed at the other Ameri- 
cans they meet there than at any other people who 
travel. So we may well stop trying to describe our- 
selves to foreigners. We are too vast, too heterogene- 
ous. Lord Houghton said, " Don't try." 

One question I always asked and never got answered 
satisfactorily. It was : " Why did England take the 
side of the South ?" I hoped to receive some philosophi- 
cal solution of this great problem. Sir John Bowring 
said, " She did not." Dr. Mackay, the poet, gave me 
a witty answer : " Because England loves all rebels 
except at home !" But, with all this, they were most 
kindly, most hospitable ; they seemed to feel, in spite of 
themselves, a sort of brotherhood. They take trouble 
for you, are delighted if you enjoy England ; take pleas- 
ure in opening wide those splendid doors within whose 
folds are hidden so much luxury, so much comfort. The 
conversation at an English dinner-table, cordial, refined, 
often learned, never (to my hearing) commonplace; the 
low, deliciously musical voices of Englishwomen (would 
that they could be imported !) ; the straightforward, 
pleasant talk of the men — all these things go to form 
a society such as we cannot have in this country for 
many, many years to come, if ever. 

This was written in 1869, after my first visit. Since 
then I have spent five seasons in London and have al- 
most lived a year in England, but I do not know that I 
could improve upon my early recollections ; at any rate, 
I am glad that I saw England then as I have always 
seen it — kind, hospitable, and most agreeable. 



CHAPTER IX 

The Social Side of London — Sir William Stirling - Maxwell and Sir 
John Bowriug — Mr. Motley and General Adam Badeau — A Visit 
to Hampton Court — Racial Characteristics and Differentiation — 
The Lord Byron Scandal Again — A Page of Unwritten History — 
Across the Channel to Paris. 

The first person to call on us on our arrival in London 
Avas General Adam Badeau, our Secretary of Legation, 
who was of great use to us. I had known him since he 
was a j^oung newspaper-man, who used to pause admir- 
ingly before Mr. Bancroft at the opera to get a word or 
two from the great historian, and who also had a word 
or two of chat with me about society, for which he was 
ambitious. After going to the war he had painfully 
climbed up my steps with his crutches, having been 
wounded in the foot — poor fellow !— and he had done 
me the greatest of favors in making General Grant my 
friend. He had a decided talent for society and was a 
generous and discriminating entertainer, as well as a man 
of ability. 

The next day we called on Mr. Motley, our minister, 
and he immediately returned our call ; and from that 
moment, after presenting our letters, we were launched 
on a sea of dinners and fetes, balls and social functions. 
I remember Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Lord Hough- 
ton, Sir John Bowring, Tom Taylor, the dramatist ; Sir 
Harr}^ and Lady Yerney, Mr. Beresford (at Hampton 
Court), and Mr. Holford as among our earliest friends. 



148 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

We had letters to Dean Stanley, to the Bishop of Lon- 
don, to the Bishop of Chester, and to the Bishop of 
Kochester, from our bishop Horatio Potter, of New 
York ; and we had our own Mr. Motley and General 
Badeau, who never forgot us for a moment. 

The presentations to the Queen were over for the 
season (it was late in June) ; but we did not miss them, 
as we had all we could do. I remember balancing m}^ 
regret with the thought that I should have another da}^ 
for sight-seeing. I think now, if I were to do it all over 
again, I should always devote the first season in London 
to sight-seeing, the second to society, the third to a judi- 
cious mixture of the two ; for when doors are opened to 
one which never may be thrown open again it seems 
cruel and absurd to one's self to not seize the opportu- 
nity to know those who are eminent in that courtly 
world which so few have entered, but which is so well 
worth seeing. 

Sir William Stirling -Maxwell was a man whose ac- 
quaintance was to be dearly prized. Charles Astor Bris- 
ted had introduced us to him, and he seemed to find no 
trouble too great, no kindness too elaborate, to take for 
us. Through him we saw all the great balls, the grand 
functions, excepting those of royalt}^ He gave us din- 
ners himself, at which we met the choicest people in 
society. I remember his intellectual wife. Lady Anna 
Stirling-Maxwell (afterwards she met the dreadful fate 
of Mrs. Longfellow), and Sir Andrew and Lady Bu- 
chanan, and Lady Emily Hamilton, a beautiful woman, 
the sister of Lady Anna ; and, better than all, the Hon. 
Mrs. Norton, whom I had been worshipping as an au- 
thoress since I was thirteen. She was still handsome, al- 
though she told us her age and that she had just had the 
scarlet-fever ! The Khedive was in London — Ismail, the 



MB. MOTLEY AND DEAN STANLEY 149 

hero of the canal and sponsor for Ismailia. Sir William 
managed it that we should see some of the festivals in 
his honor. London depends on the opening of a single 
door, and more than one such admirable friend opened 
the door for us. Where everybody is kindly disposed, 
your heart must be a bitter one if you are not pleased. 

General Badeau had been in London long enough to 
realize our unexpected good fortune and to congratulate 
us on it. Mr. Motley was, I fear, secretly pleased that 
we did not demand anything of him, the more so as he 
had just had bad luck at Vienna and some troublesome 
experiences in London. He was one of the most beau- 
tiful of men, as well as one of the simplest, most agree- 
able, and most attractive. I had never seen him in 
America. I am glad to think that I saw him where he 
was so honored, and where he so honored America. 

Dean Stanley took us through Westminster Abbey 
with one of his smaller parties, and threw the illumina- 
tion of his knowledge into the dark corners. 

The promptitude of English hospitality rather alarmed 
us. Sir John Bowring had told the Bishop of Kochester 
that we had letters to him from Bishop Potter, and he 
immediately asked us to his house for three days ! Bishop 
Jacobson, of Chester, wrote three letters of introduction 
for us while we stood in the library of the Athenaeum, 
which were of great service to us at Oxford and at York 
Minster and at Canterbury, and indeed everywhere else. 

And so w^e were passed along. One of our most 
enjoyable visits was to Sir Harry and Lady Yerney at 
their noble old house at Claydon. Lady Yerney, a sis- 
ter of Florence Nightingale, was an author, a botanist, a 
very charming woman, and a good artist. She had dil- 
igently compiled all the history of the Yerney family, 
and we saw some rare family portraits — one of Sir Ed- 



150 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

ward Yerney, who fell at Edge Hill ; and Sir Harry 
showed us the ring which Sir Edward's servant brought 
home from his dead hand. 

Another visit was to Mr. and Mrs. Beresford at Hamp- 
ton Court. Mr. Beresford was the warden of the tennis 
court, an honorary office that gave him a residence in 
the old palace where the Queen lodges her old servants. 
It was a picturesque home, and gave upon the garden 
of Anne Boleyn. Some strawberries from this sacred 
enclosure were added to our luncheon. Mr. Beresford 
had been a friend and admirer of George lY., and, I 
think, the Tory " whipper-in " during one session of 
Parliament. He had also been an under secretary of 
state, and was a line old prejudiced Englishman, of a 
type which Dickens would have worshipped — most gen- 
tlemanly, gouty, and hospitable. We saw Hampton 
Court under his auspices thoroughly, but he was very 
glad when he found that we did not wish him to take 
us to see the state apartments or the Sir Peter Lely 
beauties ; that, indeed, we could do by ourselves. We re- 
turned to take tea with his wife, who was most agreeable. 

So we got a glimpse of that life at Hampton Court 
which Dickens so funnily hits off in Our Mutual Friend 
as the home of Edgar's mother, and Mr. Beresford told 
us of the former days when the debtors could only come 
out on Sunday, and so on. Sir John Bowring took us to 
the clubs, to the British Museum, and to the National 
Gallery, where w^e found his wife and daughter copying 
pictures ; and I learned then twice as much of these two 
great national institutions as I should have done with a 
less instructed cicerone. 

Indeed, we saw much of that now far-off, lesser Lon- 
don, of which I was to see so much more later on, and 
we went to Marlborough House and Lambeth Palace, 



INTELLECTUAL LONDON 151 

and other great houses, and to galleries galore, until we 
had not a foot to stand upon from fatigue. Then we 
journeyed up to York Minster, and to Edinburgh, and to 
Blair Athole, and to the " Queen's Yiew," and down by 
the English lakes ; then back to London for some late 
balls and dinners, and some invitations to country-houses 
within a few hours of London. 

In this my first visit to London I was struck with the 
intellectual tone of certain houses. Men of distinction, 
artists, and authors were invited everywhere and made 
much of. Literary and intellectual questions came into 
the gayest salons. Those agreeable men, the English 
clergy, seemed omnipresent, and London was a metrop- 
olis of science, letters, and the fine arts. Having been 
introduced by Mr. Motley, it was possible that w^e saw 
more that was polished and intellectual than we should 
have done otherwise ; but we were struck, among the 
older men, not only with that polish of an hereditary 
aristocracy, but with the respect with which they treated 
men of genius — those eminent old men — like the Duke 
of Abercorn, whom some one called "the last of the 
grand seigniors," being conspicuously elegant and court- 
eous. They were pre-eminently well-mannered. Lord 
Houghton was so very individual a man that it was 
impossible to call him a typical Englishman. He liked 
to gather oddities and geniuses around his table, and he 
was always particularl}^ friendly to Americans. We 
came in at the end of war. The North had been 
victorious; we Northerners were the fashion; but one 
lady confided to me that she thought it strange that 
our President, Mr. Eeverdy Johnson, should come over 
as minister ! She could not separate Eeverdy from An- 
drew Johnson. They really knew very little about us. 

Mr. Motle}^, aristocrat by birth, association, education, 



153 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

and manners, was still too much of a patriot to allow 
any disrespect to the republic which he represented ; 
but his intelligence was too broad not to distinguish 
between what was pure and simple ignorance of our 
affairs and what was intended for impertinence. His 
fine lips would curl a little, perhaps, at any mistake too 
palpable ; but he was, like our minister, Charles Francis 
Adams, able to keep his indignation in check. 

London society was far more exclusive then than it is 
now ; it was smaller, and the age had not " ripened like 
a plum." I was also struck by the reserve of certain 
coteries : they kept back the intellectual treasures of 
their minds'; they even regarded a quick wit and a lively 
tongue as a little fatiguing. Wit was a gymnast whom 
they distrusted, reminding one of Marie Antoinette's re- 
mark about Moliere : 

" Ce Moliere est de mauvais gout," said the queen. - 

" Yous vous trompez, madame," said the king ; " on 
pent reprocher a Moliere d'etre quelquefois de mauvais 
^a/i, mais il u^Q^i jamais de mauvais goutP 

Lord Houghton did not think it bad manners or bad 
taste to be witty, but many of his countrymen differed 
with him and said as much. Again, I think the English 
are very fond of being entertained, and that they regard 
the French and the American people as destined by 
Heaven to amuse them. Between the two there are 
always those cosmopolitan English who understand 
both and interpret both. Such men as Mr. Motley, Mr. 
Lowell, Mr. Henry James, on our side ; such men as Lord 
Houghton, Sir Stafford Northcote, Earl de Grey, Tom 
Hughes, and Kingsley, on their side, were capable of 
understanding both. I think Dean Stanley, kind and 
lovely though he was, never understood or thoroughly 
liked Americans; we were strange beasts to him. I had 



VISITS IN LONDON 153 

the pleasure of seeing him later on at Mr. Cyrus W. 
Field's, and I think the only hour he thoroughly enjoyed 
was when he was going to see the monument to Major 
Andre. 

These differences of temperament are utterly beyond 
our control. Tennyson and Carlyle could never endure 
Americans, nor do I believe Disraeli was much more 
tolerant, although always most polished. But there were 
hearty friends of ours in London, enough to make a visit 
there most enjoyable ; not only such splendid examples 
as Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, but innumerable others ; 
and of women, I found in the beautiful Duchess of West- 
minster (sister to Lord Ronald Gower), in Miss Thack- 
eray, and in Lady Yerney, three types which will always 
stand for the most cordial and the most kindly of friends. 

Of literary ladies I was not so fortunate as to see 
many. The Hon. Mrs. Norton and Miss Thackeray 
were the only ones whom I knew well. Lady Yerney 
told me that the literary society of London was too 
busy to go out much, and I fancy this was the truth. 

George Eliot had published the Spanish Gypsy the 
year before, and I was determined to see her, but the 
opportunity never occurred. Mr. Bancroft had given 
me a letter to Carlyle, and we diligently drove to Cheyne 
Walk ; but the sage was out walking. I think he always 
was, when Americans called. 

But these our failures were far more infrequent than 
our successes. We saw all the fashionable people that 
we wished to see, and received that social welcome which 
warms the heart. And one knows a country better in 
thus entering its homes, its strongholds, than by merely 
bowing to a celebrity. 

Our little experience of a two months' visit has filled 
my whole life with a joyous remembrance of England ; 



154 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

it made me many friends, and led to a correspondence 
with Lord Houghton which has been of priceless advan- 
tage. The experience has been oft repeated, and I have 
spent many seasons in London since, knowing well her 
artists and litterateurs^ her hospitable nobility, and have 
even a slight acquaintance with her admirable Eoyal 
family. 

In later days General Badeau presented me with his 
Life of Grant; I have it, with his autograph. It is a 
noble book, and does both honor. Later on, with all his 
friends, I felt very much astonished at, and terribly dis- 
appointed by, the attack which he made on his dying 
chief. No one could mistake Badeau's style, nor that 
of General Grant ; therefore his assumption, if he ever 
made it, that he was the author of that last wonderful 
book, which the dying hero wrote with death clutching 
him by the throat, made me feel, as it did many, that 
Badeau was profoundly ungrateful. He is gone now, 
and I desire to lay this flower on his grave : he was a 
man of talent, filled with good impulses, when I knew 
him ; what he became afterwards I do not know. I did 
not see him for ten years before his death, but read his 
occasional papers with great pleasure. 

Nobody in England had a better chance to see and 
observe the different phases of such characters as Lord 
Houghton than had Badeau, and he knew well the noble 
ladies about whom he wrote so admirably The lady of 
Strawberry Hill had never so good a portrait painted 
of her. Countess Waldegrave, who had risen from the 
lowly position of the daughter of Braham, tbe singer, to 
being one of the first women in English society — a 
woman as famous in her day as Lady Cassell Holland 
was in hers — rendered herself completely up to Ba- 
deau's pencil ; and the sketches of the Queen, the visit 



LADY VERNEY'S ACCOUNT OF LADY BYRON 155 

of General Grant to the Prince of "Wales, all of which he 
witnessed, have become historical through his facile pen. 

Lady Yerney confided to General Badeau, as she did to 
me at her own house, her displeasure at the revelations 
of Mrs. Stowe in regard to Lord and Lady Byron. She 
was the most intimate friend of Lady Byron, and told 
me that she had from Lady Byron's own lips the follow- 
ing account of the cause of the separation : 

Lady Byron found in one of his old desks a certificate 
of the marriage with the Spanish beauty of whom Moore 
speaks. Horrified beyond endurance at this terrible dis- 
closure, by which she felt herself not a lawful wife, she 
went to Sir Samuel Komilly and to Dr. Lushington and. 
asked their advice. They both said to her, " Stay in 
Byron's house until your child is born, and then leave 
him and await developments." She followed their ad- 
vice implicitly. So much was she in love with Byron 
that she took up his little dog and kissed it as she left 
the ill-fated house where she had been so badly treated. 

The grave question of the legitimacy of Ada prevented 
her from speaking of this discovery, but she never lived 
with Byron after it. The Spanish beauty never troubled 
her, so perhaps it was only a mock-marriage. As for 
the terrible aspersions on Byron's sister (Lady or Mrs. 
Augusta Leigh), Lady Yerney declared them to have 
been scandalous lies. She thought Lady Byron could 
never have uttered them, as the sister of Byron was her 
friend through life. The only explanation which friends 
of Lady Byron could give me as to this discrepancy was 
that Lady Byron was not at all times perfectly sane ; 
but Lady Yerney believed differently, and was not at all 
sparing in her criticisms of Mrs. Stowe. 

We came home in l^ovember, to begin again that home 
life which was not to be disturbed for many years ; but 



156 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

the education and delight of this first visit were not to 
be measured by words. 

There are three things which astonish an American 
beyond the power of expression on a first visit to Europe. 
One is a mountain, the second is a cathedral, the third is 
an old Italian villa, or a French chateau, or an English 
great house peopled by three hundred years of cultivated 
and continuous ownership. 

What a superb thing it is, that great house, with its 
terraces and fountains, its statues and groups of marble 
and bronze, its noble fapade, its stately flights of steps, 
its gardens, d la Dufresnoy, at once grand and poeti- 
cally wild ; Nature claiming all in her charming caprices 
and fairy fantasies, Art standing back to look on and to 
admire ! Shall we ever achieve that ? No, not until we 
have had a past in which monarchs can squander millions. 
To cause a turf to become velvet we must first have a 
race of nobles and a dynasty of artists. Millionaires 
may paint their beautiful ceilings and hang the tapes- 
tries of Flemish looms on their walls, yet the most deli- 
cate intelligence, the most perfect taste, cannot give that 
last touch which Time so unconsciously adds ; and with- 
out that touch how can we expect to build a cathedral 
like Milan, Cologne, Canterbury, York, Ely, Lincoln, or 
Seville, Toledo, Strasburg, Notre Dame, Chartres, Kouen ? 

And again, although since then our Western railroads 
have thrown open to us the fine snow-peaks of the Rock- 
ies, we can never have the surprise of the Swiss snow- 
mountains (which are next door to the palace and the ca- 
thedral) ; our scenery, majestic as it is, wants tradition 
and the marks of man's handiwork to give it perspective. 

When we reached Paris, on our way home, it was No- 
vember, and I had a cold, so that my first raptures were 
somewhat chilled. 



CHAPTER X 

A Little Journey in the Land of William Tell — Basle and Lucerne — 
On the Way to Interlaken — The Jungfrau and the Giesbach — 
Byron and Voltaire — Geneva and Mont Blanc — An Ascent of the 
Brevent — Over the Simplon Road and through the Gorge of 
Gondo— On the Italian Slope. 

My trip through Switzerland must ever remain a 
pleasant memory of my first visit to the Continent in 
1869. 

Basle is a picturesque old town, with its ten-storied 
houses — almost as quaint, some of them, as those of 
Nuremberg— crowding down to the rushing and over- 
flowing Ehine Eiver, which here is more tumultuous 
than anywhere else we have seen it. That troublesome 
water-spirit. Undine's uncle, Kuhleborn, who was so in- 
convenient alike to his friends and his foes, and who 
had to be held down by very heavy masonry even in 
the courtyard of his niece, has taken up his abode in 
the Rhine, beneath the walls of Basle ; and it is an ever- 
recurring wonder to careful and anxious mothers why 
the Basle children are not all drowned. It is evident 
that if they once got within the grasp of the water- 
spirit they would never escape, for he lashes the green 
glacier tide into a superb furj^ here, and the Rhine is no- 
where more impressive than at Basle. 

The Mlinster is a delightful nut for the antiquarian 
gourmand. It has two lofty towers, is Gothic and 
quaint, and religious in its sombreness, with those em- 



158 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

blematical bas-reliefs and statues and carvings of which 
the old workers in stone were so fond. Here we have 
John the Baptists and saints, our Saviour and the angels 
at the dreadful day of judgment, and an allegorical re- 
lief of the " Works of Charity," very beautiful, with 
women's and children's faces. Then we have over the 
doorway the significant parable of the wise and foolish 
virgins, all the foolish virgins handsome and all the wise 
ones plain. The west front illustrates the fourteenth 
century. There the Yirgin and Child are represented, 
St. George and the dragon, and the benefactors of the 
church, the Emperor Henry and his Empress. 

This church was excommunicated by Pope Eugenius 
TV. ; it was one of the first to bathe in the advancing 
wave of the Reformation, and is said to be the " finest 
Protestant church in existence." It dates back to 1010, 
which is a long time ago. Many vicissitudes have 
passed over it. It has been partly destroyed by fire, 
and rebuilt. It of course suffered in the iconoclasm of 
the sixteenth century, but it has been so judiciously re- 
stored that not a particle of its charm is gone ; the re- 
storer has borrowed the tooth of time, and has used it 
with his other tools. How immensely old are those re- 
liefs of the eleventh century, and the old episcopal chair! 
Tbe pulpit and font are considered modern, as they only 
date to 1424. There are monuments to the wife and 
mother of Rudolph of Hapsburg, who seems himself in 
the twilight of history. 

It has a charm for the student, for here is the tomb 
of Erasmus of Rotterdam, the gentler genius of the 
Reformation, and the learned, delightful scholar. 

In its old, dusty council-hall are the famed frescoes 
of the " Dance of Death," erroneously attributed to 
Holbein. They are gloomy and fantastic, like the age 



FROM BASLE TO LUCERNE 159 

they symbolize. The plague has left this dreadful evi- 
dence of itself all over this part of Europe. Every- 
where you see a " Dance of Death." 

The artist is, after all, the best historian of his time, 
and in whatever he is wrought upon to paint, be it 
" Holy Family," " The King Drinks," " Beatrice Cenci," 
" Galileo before the Council," or the grim and gloomy 
allegory of the " Dance of Death," he paints better than 
he knows, and gives us the age he lived in, its ruling in- 
fluences, its agitations, and its crimes. 

From Basle to Lucerne is a short railway journey, 
but rich in experiences, for you see first that long line 
of snow-clad Alps. It is an enormous lift to the vision, 
as you gaze on that rosy summit : 

"The last to parley with the setting sun." 

We arrived at the Schweizerhof, one of the best hotels 
of Europe, in time for a glorious sunset over the Lake 
of Lucerne. Its royal guards, Pilatus (named for the 
Governor of Judea, who is supposed to have wandered 
hither, pursued by a guilty conscience, and to have per- 
ished miserably on the cloudy heights) and Rhigi, were 
clad in purple for the occasion, and it was a kingly sight. 

There arose beyond the lake those "White Peaks, lovely 
nymphs who entice 3^ou onward to their frozen bowers. 
Who can describe them, who can resist their weird, 
unusual charm ? I do not wonder at the power of the 
Siren of the Alps, nor at the numbers of her victims. 

Lucerne is the chief town of the canton, and situated 
as never town was, with the lake in front and the moun- 
tains on three sides. The " Lake of the Four Forest 
Cantons," this lovely Lake of Lucerne, is probably the 
most beautiful in the world. It is of that peculiar and 
indescribable blue — 



160 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

"The light that never was on sea or land, 
The consecration and the poet's dream." 

And the whole scene brings back to you the apology of 
the Swiss print-seller who explained the predominance 
of that color in his pictures by the American demand 
for it : 

" II faut toujourSj monsieur, beaucoup de bleu pour les 
Americains." 

He thought, good man, that as the Americans paid 
most money for everything they should have their 
money's worth ; and he did not know, perhaps, that 
they, of all travellers, are most struck by this peculiar 
blue, so different is it from the tints of our own lakes. 

This lake touches the four historical cantons of Uri, 
Schwytz, Unterwalden, and Lucerne. Here is the land 
of William Tell, and Schiller's poem is your best guide 
round the lake. If William Tell is a " myth," as the icon- 
oclasts of history pretend, he is a myth who " preached 
the eternal creed of liberty," and I believe in him, and 
listen always with much emotion to the story of the 
apple. His statue at Altorf, the frescoes representing 
his celebrated feat with the bow, and all relating to him 
are genuine enough for me ; and Schiller has made him 
true, if he were not. I grant that the three iriends of 
Tell — Stauffacher, Melchthal, and Fiirst — as you see 
their three figures in fresco, and particularly as they are 
presented in the opera, are apt to be bores. Patriotism, 
like all other virtues, is interesting only so long as it is 
not run into the ground. 

But how lovely is that virtue when you see it imaged 
by Thorwaldsen's lion — the noble old monarch, with his 
wounded paws stretched over the lilies of France ! 

As I looked at this sculpture there came a trick of 
sunlight for which I felt infinitely obliged. It was a 



KHIGI AND MOUNT PILATUS 161 

gloomy day, and we could scarcely see the lion, overhung 
as it is by the rock, and the shadow of the trees is heavy 
about it always. But as we were trying to spell out the 
inscription the clouds parted, and one last tribute of the 
dying day rested on the dying lion. We saw him at his 
best. 

"So shines a good deed in a naughty world." 

Plere, again, the artist has proved himself the best his- 
torian, and no one has written the story of the Swiss 
Guard as has Thorwaldsen. 

The ascent of the Khigi and of Mount Pilatus afford 
work for two days each, and draw to Lucerne the great- 
est number of tourists. Here conversation is wholly of 
the picturesque. Your next neighbor on the right has 
been in the clouds all day. Your neighbor on the left 
has been up the lake, and can talk of nothing but the 
Blumenalp and the Bergenstock, or the vision he has 
had of the Bernese Alps ; or your artist friend comes in 
with a sketch made just above Tell's chapel. 

Here we met Mozier, the American sculptor, who 
passed his summers frequently at Lucerne. Nothing 
could exceed his enthusiasm for this delicious spot, and 
he bade it adieu with regret, having engaged to meet 
some friends at Lake Como. As we said farewell to this 
refined and delightful person we little thought it was for 
the last time, but in less than a year we heard of his 
lamented death. Here we met our American artist Mi- 
gnot. He was full of work, full of hope, and sketching 
the mountain effects with great enthusiasm. He has 
gone in his early middle age, and works no more. 

Here we saw the Kmg and Queen of Belgium, wear- 
ing on their faces the imprint of their great sorrow — the 
loss of their only son. 



162 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Here we met, I should say, twenty-five hundred of our 
own countrymen, more or less, all spending money with 
great energy, and being reprehended for so doing by the 
travellers of all other nations as price-raisers. If the 
Americans would look at their bills and condescend to 
be economical, as the English are, it would be in quite 
as good taste ; but the trouble with some travellers is 
that they have not had money a great while, and any 
new sensation is apt to be uncontrollable. 

Lucerne is a pretty Swiss town, with eleven thousand 
souls, mostly Catholics. We saw a great demonstra- 
tion, ten thousand strong, of the " men of Uri " and the 
other cantons, who went about singing their national 
songs. Had they retained their costumes how interest- 
ing it would have been ! but they w^ore the disenchant- 
ing clothes of the nineteenth century, and were, simply 
short and ugly men with spectacles. But Lucerne "has 
an unrivalled organ. You are allowed to go and hear 
it at twilight, and as you gather, wanderers of all na- 
tions, in the dimly lighted church you are in the mood 
for music — 

"As o'er the keys the musing organist, 
Beginning fitfully and far away, 
First lets his fingers wander as they list, 
To build a bridge from dreamland for his lay." 

Then come wondrous chords, great harmonies, clashing 
weapons ; then you seem to hear monks chanting their 
evening hymn ; then a single voice — almost a voice from 
heaven, so pure, so exalted, so sadly sweet ; again it be- 
comes human, freighted with human sorrows, human 
tears. It soars upward in the Ave Maria. Then rises 
a chorus of voices chanting the hymn of peace or a re- 
quiem for the dead; now the shrill voices of the nuns; 



THE OEGAN AT LTJCEENE 163 

and above all floats the serene beauty of the boy choir — 
that faltering, vibrating soprano which is of all musical 
sounds the most touching, the most profoundly affecting 
to the human heart. As tears begin to trickle down 
cheeks all unused to such visitants, the melody changes 
and a woman's voice sings tranquilly some Italian air. 
Again your senses cheat you, and a pattering rain beats 
upon the roof ; the thunder rattles and you look anx- 
iously at your thin coat. However, the innocuous storm 
bursts over your head and vanishes in the chords of 
the Eussian national hymn, the American anthem of 
Yankee Doodle (somewhat apotheosized), or God Save 
the Queen, for the cunning organist knows to whom 
he is playing; and after a few more glorious notes 
the music dies away, and you fold your tents like the 
Arabs and go back to your hotel. 

I can believe anything of the tricks of sound since I 
heard that organ ; and afterwards we timed our daily 
journeys so that we might arrive in the towns famous 
for organs at the hour of twihght and hear them play. 
But w^e never heard anything so fine again. Perhaps 
we were under the spell of that rosy first love of travel, 
whose fruits are so delicious ; perhaps (and this is prob- 
able) the organist was a man of genius. 

From Lucerne we drove to Interlaken over the Brii- 
nig Pass. This road, after leaving the Lake of Lucerne, 
became very disagreeable from the dust, and very sad 
from the effects of the inundations ; villages half gone, 
and that dreadful devastation of sand and gravel cover- 
ing the once smiling fields which is so hopeless and dis- 
heartening. 

Yet the latter part of this drive is very picturesque, 
and the twilight finds you wishing for "more light," 
that you may see Interlaken and its walnut avenues. 



164 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEKITY 

But in our case the approach to that pretty and con- 
venient town, with its Kursaal, music-shops, Americans, 
English, and its innumerable excursions, was veiled by 
night. 

It is delightfully comfortable, this town "between 
the lakes," Brienz and Thun. The hotels, particularly the 
Yictoria and Hotel Jungfrau, are good even for Swit- 
zerland, famous for good hotels. 

Here you have the excursions to the Wengern Alp, to 
Reichenbach, to Lauterbrunnen (what a word ! " noth- 
ing but springs " is its beautiful meaning), and there you 
see the Staubbach. Then to Grindelwald, where you meet 
the glacier, a most distinguished and uncommon ac- 
quaintance. And there — oh the ineffectuality of lan- 
guage ! — there you see the glorious, the unrivalled Jung- 
frau! When I begin to talk of the Jungfrau I am 
convinced that language was given to us to conceal our 
ideas. Other things are lofty, are grand, are lovely, 
and are beautiful ; but the Jungfrau is unlike all other 
things, and yet she is all these. How can I begin to de- 
scribe this lovely lady of the Alpine world ? How, if I 
begin, can I stop ? How can I tell of her majesty, her 
unsullied snows, her noble uphft above the sordid lower 
world ? They say those dizzy heights have been scaled 
by human footsteps ; they can never be reached by hu- 
man epithets. She is serene and unassailable in beauty 
— the Jungfrau — vrithout a rival. How respectfully the 
other mountains stand away, like courtiers round a 
queen ! and how her green velvet hills crouch at either 
side like footstools for her royal feet ! Perfect in out- 
line, sublime in height, fortunate in position, dazzling in 
purity, the Jungfrau is one of the dearest delights of 
Switzerland. 

You get so fond of her that you like to toy with your 



MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 165 

liking, and go away and turn your back upon her, that 
you may have the pleasure of seeing her again with 
surprised vision. You try to forget how beautiful she 
is, that you may enjoy the charm over. You come 
again and again, like any fond, foolish lover, and w^or- 
ship her anew. 

Perhaps because the Jungfrau is surrounded (as you 
see her from Interlaken) by green mountains, her snows 
obtain that intensity of whiteness which makes her con- 
spicuous even in the land of snow. One would think 
all snow must be equally white, but the Jungfrau makes 
all other snow look gray ; and her peak, " the Silber- 
horn," is almost blinding in its dazzling brightness. 

If one has time and strength, one should go over all 
the passes and make all the excursions. But, alas ! who 
has time or strength in these degenerate days? They 
are both things of the past, and went out with our heroic 
ancestors. That blessed invention the chaise a pm^- 
teurs — blessed for the lame and the lazy — will take you, 
sans fatigue, sans danger, sans everything, wherever a 
mule can go and wherever you want to go. I saw an 
Englishman who must have weighed three hundred 
pounds being comfortably transported over the high 
Alps in one of these chairs, and he was so generous 
Avith his pourboire that his bearers uttered blessings on 
him as they wdped their streaming foreheads and wished 
inconsistently that there were more like him. A Swiss 
will carry you anywhere, or do anything for you, for 
live francs. But the carriage routes and the piazzas of 
the hotels will give you views enough to last you a life- 
time, if 3^ou have not time or strength for more. The 
most delicate invalid could make the tour of Switzerland. 

At Grindelwald you see the glacier, of all things most 
indescribable. The sea frozen in a storm is the image 



166 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

which most nearl}^ describes it to me. Whether you look 
up at its awful solitudes or down where it rests its icy 
tongue on the valley, w4th the pink crocus blossoming on 
the very edge ; whether you examine its blue and broken 
ice or draw away from its fearful crevasse, or think of 
its cold, defined, steady, and silent course, with the im- 
mense boulders on its bosom — wherever and whenever 
you see it, it is the miracle of nature, the wonder of the 
Alpine world. 

At Lauterbrunnen you have the Staubbach, so famous 
from Lord Byron's comparison to the tail of the white 
horse of the Apocalypse. It is not so grand as that, but 
a graceful, evanescent thing — a veil floating in the winds, 
a vapor, a vision, a "silver dust of water." You see a 
dozen such on your way to Reichenbach, which itself is 
a gloriously abundant, wild, American sort of fall. 

But the prettiest of all the excursions from Interlaken 
is the Giessbach Fall. You go up the Lake of Brienz to 
Giessbach, and must then ascend a very precipitous hill. 
You find a hotel in a forest, but embowered with flowers, 
and near to the famous waterfall. So isolated is the 
whole thing that you and your fellow-travellers are like 
a family, one which could easily draw round the fire, 
and each tell his story. 

At evening they illuminate the fall with colored lights. 
The guide-books denounce this as tricky and unnatural, 
and as a coup de theatre; but I did not think so. It was 
playing with nature, but she can afford it in these her 
wild and sportive moods. 

All about these charming spots you meet the Swiss 
beggar in his most protean forms. He is very anxious 
you should buy a marmot — why, I could not discover, 
as the animal is simply an enlarged rat, and not at all 
rare. 



FEEYBUEG, LAUSANNE, GENEVA 167 

The inexorable necessities of travel force you onward, 
and after a pleasant sail on the Lake of Thun and a short 
railway journey you are at Freyburg in time to hear the 
organ. 

Freyburg is a romantic town hung in mid-air. It is 
built on several precipices, and the business of life goes 
on by means of two suspension-bridges, each longer than 
our famous one at Niagara. In your hotel you are hung 
up as if in a bird-cage, and realize the life of a pet canary. 
What is the reason for Freyburg? Why was such an 
impossible town built ? It has drives of unusual beauty, 
an old tower of extraordinary interest, any amount of 
antiquity, and great apparent comfort and prosperity ; 
in fact, the world has not sufficiently emphasized Frey- 
burg as one of its attractive spots. 

Go hence to Lausanne, and stay as long as you can at 
the " Beau Rivage," a lordly place. Sail up to Chillon, 
and examine that lonely, sad prison. Look your fill at 
those blue mountains. Kecall your " J^ouvelle Heloise," 
for here was her home. 

Stop, if you can, at the Hotel Byron and at Yevay. 
Go down the lake to Geneva and see Mont Blanc for the 
first time. Old Yoltaire had a poor opinion of Geneva. 
" When I shake my wig, I powder the whole republic," 
said that acidulated wit. They thought better of him. 
They said he " made his estate pay, his tenants prosper- 
ous, and his prospects smile." Few better things were 
ever said of any man. And yet how few people read 
him now, and how little the great genius who ruled his 
own age has affected, or will affect, any other ! 

His house at Ferney is interesting, and is kept scrupu- 
lously as a show-place. The long "pleached -alley" 
drive in which he used to walk is still shady and sweet, 
allowing you glimpses of the distant prospect, a " ver- 



168 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

dant cloister," through which can be seen the Alps and 
Mont Blanc ; yet no one loves it better that Voltaire 
has walked there. 

Far different feelings associate themselves with Cham- 
pagne Diodati. Here Milton visited, and here Byron 
lived — the poet whose genius has added a charm to 
nature's loveliest and most sublime scenes. You feel 
your indebtedness to Byron nowhere else as you do in 
Switzerland. To him alone has it been given to find a 
phraseology noble enough for the Alps. 

"The avalanche, the thunderbolt of snow" 

is one of these fine descriptive lines. 

Lake Leman needs no other description after his. ISTo 
artist could paint it in calm or in storm as he has done. 
With what undying charm has he invested Chillon! 
" Clarens, sweet Clarens," and the lofty Jura, who "an- 
swers from her misty shroud." How perfectly he de- 
scribes the " glacier's cold and restless mass " ! And even 
the guide-books can find no words so fitting as his with 
which to describe the scenery, climate, the most noble or 
the most common phenomena of the Alpine world. 

Every house in which Byron lived has become a 
" shrine to the pilgrim of genius," and it is with loving 
pity and unbounded admiration for the splendid gifts 
of the unhappy poet that you tread the classic paths 
about the Champagne Diodati. Yet with all this newly 
awakened gratitude to the poet in our hearts, we had 
the exquisite pain of reading, at this very time, the 
terrible attack made upon him by a countrywoman of 
our own. The poet is silent ; he cannot answer it, but 
the world has answered it for him, and has met the at- 
tack with indignant disbelief. Byron was too fond of 
accusing himself to have been a very guilty man. Men 



LAKE LEMAN lb» 

who really commit crimes are not fond of telling of 
them. The morbid and the highly imaginative often 
think themselves worse than they are. Perhaps Heaven 
may forgive such false self-reckoning, and may think 
it a lesser crime than a comfortable self -righteous- 
ness. 

I said the poet was silent. Does he not from that 
far-off sphere, where all that was noble of him exists, 
purified from the frailties and passions of earth, drop 
these words of answer and reproof upon the bosom of 
the lake he loved ? — 

* ' Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake, 
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing 
Which warns with its stillness to forsake 
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. 
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 
To waft me from destruction. Once I loved 
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring 
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved, 
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved." 

So long as the lake mirrors the mountains, so long 
as the Alps rise one stone above another, so long as the 
human heart can detect what is true and what is false 
in the utterances of inspiration, so long shall these lines 
be read and quoted and admired as Lord Byron's un- 
answerable defence. 

" Mon lac est le premier," says Yoltaire ; and jou al- 
most forgive Yoltaire for his disagreeable qualities when 
you remember how he liked this beautiful Lake of Ge- 
neva. It is hard to say it is the most beautiful when 
you remember Lucerne and the Italian lakes ; but when 
you are looking at it you cannot say that anything is 
more beautiful. Its extraordinary blue, its clearness, 
its variety of scenerj^, vine-clad hills, rocky precipices, 



170 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITT 

and above all, in every sense, Mont Blanc, make it a 
memorable spot. 

Geneva is such a clean, healthful, agreeable city, with 
unrivalled sites for villas along the lake, and in full view 
of Mont Blanc, that you are not astonished to find 
some of the English nobility, like Lady Emily Peel, or 
Germans, like Baron Rothschild and others — the lux- 
urious of all nations — living in its environs. The day 
we were permitted to see the splendid villa of Baron 
Rothschild was a day clothed in all the glories of mid- 
summer, and the tints of lake, intervale, and mountain 
were in their perfection. J^othing can surpass the view 
from this princely residence ; nothing can surpass the 
view of it, for it is one of those perfected combinations 
of architecture, landscape gardening, flowers, fountains, 
statues, vases, and vines, of which we have no examples 
in this country, few even in Europe. The villas at ISTew- 
port more nearly approach it than any I have seen. 
And they cannot have the view. They cannot see 
Mont Blanc at sunset, with attendant Alps, its crown- 
ing stone a burning, brilliant ruby, l^or can they en- 
joy the lake, a huge sapphire, blue and beautiful, though 
they do have an undeniable ocean. 

There are so many birds, flowers, animals (for he has 
quite a little zoological garden) at the Baron's villa, so 
many trees, walks, solitudes, and arbors, that you would 
be tempted to call it a wilderness of delights, did not 
any allusion to wildness seem out of place. It is like 
the " wilderness " in Miss Ferrier's novel of Marriage^ 
where the heroine says she thinks she should like a 
wilderness if it were " full of roses and good society." 

We started off for Chamouni in a heavy rain, but the 
w^eather- wise told us it was not impossible that we 
should find serene weather before we got there. Their 



CHAMOUNI AND MER DE GLACE 171 

words were words of wisdom, and we saw Mont Blanc 
peering into the valley just beyond Sallanches. He 
seems to be bending a crooked nose over the valley at 
this point, but at every turn he grows higher, whiter, 
more sublime, more magnificent. 

"Above me are the Alps, 
The palaces of nature, whose vast walls 
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, 
And throned Eternity in icy halls 
Of cold sublimity." 

You cannot do without your Byron. 

The road to Chamouni is perfectly good. You drive 
to the very foot of Mont Blanc with the greatest ease. 
The hotels at Chamouni are comfortable, and you want 
five days there of good weather to see all that you must 
see. 

For there is Mer de Glace, most mighty and most 
wonderful; you approach it by the Montanvert, up 
which you are carried by mule or chaise a porteurs. 
You get views of the Arve below you and the Felgere 
and Brevent opposite ; as you ascend you see the Aiguille 
de Dru, a needle of granite, rise before you. You can 
look up the Mer de Glace two leagues, and see beyond it 
the various " aiguilles," and a thousand nameless peaks, 
all distanced by the gigantic Aiguille Yerte, which is 
13,000 feet above the level of the sea. N"o language 
can describe the silent majesty of this scene. 

!N'ot being able to ascend Mont Blanc (and, strange to 
sa}^, you have a terrible desire to do so !), we did the 
next best thing : we went up the Brevent, vis-d-vis to 
Mont Blanc. 

We had a glorious day — not a cloud in the blue sky 
(it was, by-the-way, the 12th of September, a month 



172 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

often blessed by good weather, our guide told us) — and 
we wound up easily in two hours to Plauprat, by vari- 
ous conveyances, mules, chaises, and feet being put into 
requisition. We finally got 9000 feet above our ordi- 
nary walk in life, and held Mont Blanc in the hollow of 
our hands. 

Every peak and every glacier, all the " aiguilles," the 
pine forests below and the eternal snow above — all is 
visible from this splendid position ; you are two-fifths 
of the height of Mont Blanc above the vallej", and see 
what is justly called the ''whole mass of Mont Blanc." 

One little fleecy cloud rested two minutes on that 
rounded summit which they call "Napoleon's Hat" — 
and indeed it reminds one of a chapeau-'bras — and then 
went floating up into the blue, retaining the shape per- 
fectly, as if it were seeking some other monarch higher 
up to crown with its unsubstantial honors. It was a 
pretty phenomenon, and much noticed and talked of by 
our guides, one of whom had scaled that dizzy height 
sixteen times. He was " chief of the guides," and wore 
a medal. We could trace well the path over the awfully 
dangerous solitudes used by those who are so foolishly 
venturesome as to ascend Mont Blanc ; and our memory 
of it has lent a painful interest to the accidents which 
we have since read of, for we know into what fearful 
crevasses have fallen those doomed men who perished 
there. 

The older guides shook their heads when they talked 
about it. "I do not like to look at ' him,' " said one old 
fellow; and yet' he lives at the chalet at Plauprat, and 
is obliged to look at " him " always. But we were 
obliged to descend and to look at "him" no more. 
Majestic monarch of mountains ! he gives you thoughts 
and memories which will follow you all the days of your 



ASCENT OF THE SIMPLON 173 

life, which will be blessed companions for a sleepless 
night, and which will not be unworthy as the solace of 
the bed of sickness and of death. 

" Give me a great thought," said the dying Herder, 
" that I ma}^ solace myself." 

We lost the Matterhorn. "We presented ourselves at 
Yisp, as, according to programme, it is proper to do ; 
but it " snowed and it bio wed," and the expedition was 
abandoned. Yisp was dreadfully sad. The inunda- 
tions of the spring of 1869 had been very severe, and 
that disastrous stream of sand and stone swept across 
the valley, ruining the village and adjacent meadows. 

We were glad to leave it behind us and begin to 
ascend the Simplon. Here we leave on our left the 
town of Brieg, which seems to be all turrets, belonging 
to a family who own the appropriate name of Stock- 
alper. Then we wind slowly and tediously upward. It 
takes four horses to drag us and our carriage. What a 
colossal undertaking, this road ! We have a weary 
time of it up to the " second refuge." Here we get a 
level, and bend round the valley of the Gauther ; here 
we begin to traverse "galleries," to go through the solid 
rock, to span precipices; so on and upward to the sum- 
mit, the region above vegetation, where we see the red 
moss, the only thing which grows above the snow. 

Here is a hospice, and some of the real St. Bernard 
dogs have been brought here. These intelligent creat- 
ures flew round and round our carriage, and gave us 
an almost human greeting. We could imagine how glad 
we should be to see them if we were " the traveller lost 
in the snow " of the old picture-books. As it was, we 
were sorry when the crack of the postilion's whip dis- 
missed them and we spun rapidly on round the curves 
of this wonderful road. 



174 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

Our eyes were caught here by a glorious view. The 
Bernese Alps in all their majesty rose high in the 
heavens, above and beyond all the other peaks, and the 
clouds seemed to part that we might catch a glimpse of 
this splendid chain. After this it was a succession of 
wonders. We drove behind and under miniature Mag- 
aras, which were conducted over our heads. We drove 
through rocks, and began to feel that we were on Alad- 
din's enchanted carpet, and might easily float on the 
air. There is no describing this road. It must be 
experienced to be believed. You surprise the secrets of 
the Alpine world, and descend with the gnomes and 
rise with the spirits. Glaciers, Avaterfalls, snow moun- 
tains, precipices, become familiar objects. 

I am ashamed to say we were very hungry when we 
reached Simplon, and that we enjoyed the roast par- 
tridges and good wine of Fletschorn. Great emotions 
are appetizing, there is no doubt ; so is the keen air of 
the Alps. 

Here we begin (after dinner) perceptibly to descend. 
Here we put an iron drag on our wheels, which grinds 
horribly. Here we drive into the tremendous, savage, 
grand gorge of Gondo. Gustave Dore might well paint 
these slate rocks, innocent of vegetation — these mighty 
gaps, these terrible, gloomy precipices, this rushing 
water — for his entrance to the Inferno. Over your head 
leaps the tremendous torrent of the Frassinone. You 
are carried behind and under it ; as you pause to look 
back, your senses fail to convince you that you have 
done so wonderful a thing. 

On one of these galleries, cut in the solid rock, is the 
memorable inscription : 

"^re Italo, 1805. NapoleoD, Imperator." 



IN PARIS AGAIN 175 

^' Imperator " indeed ! 

So down and down to Isella and a custom-house. 

Then come the chestnut and the vine. The air is soft 
and delicate. Have the past few hours been real, or has 
a passionate dream crept over you? You cross the 
Doveria, gentle name for the same wild torrent which 
has torn so fiercely along your path. The maize-fields, 
the vines springing from tree to tree, the all-pervading 
chestnut, the white villages, the graceful campanile ris- 
ing in the air, the bounteous landscape — all tell you that 
you have reached the land of your dreams. This is 
Italy. 

We descended at Domo d'Ossola, a quaint, dirty, and 
picturesque characteristic Italian town. How strange 
this immediate difference of nationality ! We are only 
ten hours from a chalet, a glacier, and a snow mountain, 
and here no one stone lies upon another as it does in 
Switzerland. We are eating figs ; we are surrounded by 
large-eyed, swarthy Italians. A different race, a differ- 
ent clime, a different architecture, a different language ; 
and different they will remain forever. 

We returned home by way of ]S"uremburg, Strasburg, 
and Paris. I fortunately saw the Tuileries and the 
column in the Place Yendome before they were oblit- 
erated by the coming Commune. I saw Louis Napoleon, 
the Emperor — JSTapoleon III. — walking in the grounds 
of the Tuileries, a short and unimpressive man. He was 
gazing at an angry crowd outside the gates as I saw 
him, and there was something great in his calm and his 
sangfroid 'j yes, cold blood described this colorless man. 

Mr. Washburn, our minister, a great man, came to see 
us, he who was to play so honorable a part during the 
Commune. I remember that he came with Mr. Marsh 
to dine with us, for Mr. Marsh had come up from Flor- 



176 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITT 

ence to meet Mrs. Marsh on her way home from Amer- 
ica ; and our courier beamed with delight as he would 
throw open the door of our salon at the Hotel West- 
minster, saying, proudly, ^' Madam, the American Minis- 
ter to France is at the door !" Angelo felt triumphant. 

We gave them a good dinner at the Hotel Westmin- 
ster, which then boasted the best cook in Paris, so An- 
gelo said, and Angelo was our courier. 

I made my first acquaintance with the dinners of 
Paris in 1869, which is an epoch in one's existence. 
We drove the old historical routes, to see this immense 
grand thing called Paris, for three days ; then we be- 
gan to receive our friends — their names was legion — and 
then we went to the Louvre, and we began to dine out, 
and then — ah! to the Comedie Fran^aise and to the 
opera ! 

Dressmaking came in here ; and after a month's visit, 
with but a fragmentary idea of Paris — something bewil- 
dering, rainbow - tinted, the centre of civilization ; the 
home of the great, gay, laughing crowd ; of thought, fash- 
ion, intellect, music ; of Victor Hugo and of Eugenie, 
whom we had just seen at Venice — I left the French 
capital, not to see it again for many years. 



CHAPTER XI 

The New York of Twenty Years Ago — Social and Geographical 
Changes — Grace Church and "Old Brown" — Three of New 
York's Distinguished Hostesses — Mrs. Roberts's Dinner to Presi- 
dent and Mrs. Hayes— Mr. Evarts and his Donkey Story — Trav- 
ers and Jerome — Bret Harte— George Boker and Calvert — Our 
School for Scandal. 

I HAD lived in but two houses in l^ew York, which is, 
I believe, an unusual experience. One was at 6 West 
Eleventh Street : now it is no more — torn down to add to 
the St. Denis Hotel. But it was a convenient and pret- 
ty house, opposite a garden. This vacant plot was owned 
by Mr. Peter Lorillard, who indeed owned nearly every- 
thing about there, including a fine house in which he 
lived on Tenth Street, and where I used to go to hand- 
some balls and weddins^s. Our house was owned bv 
Professor Penwick, a learned old Scotchman, whose for- 
mal calls gave me great pleasure. He used to treat me 
to a half-hour of his fine old conversation while I was 
asking for an addition to the dining-room or a better 
range in the kitchen. If the talk fell upon Sir Walter 
Scott, whom he had known, or upon literary subjects 
generally, the professor became very generous ; but if it 
fell upon city jobs, or sudden new fortunes, or I^ew York 
politics, the professor's purse-strings tightened, and his 
characteristic Scotch face grew very sombre. He was, 
however, a generous landlord, and used to toss my babies 
up towards the roses and violets in the opposite garden. 
Ten years, however, changed all that surrounding, and 



178 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

we had to move up town. We went to the end of the 
earth, even to Thirty-second Street ! I remember that 
the omnibuses stopped on Fifth Avenue at Thirty-sec- 
ond Street, turned round, and went back again to their 
down-town stables in Eighth Street. If we wished to 
go farther we had to take the Sixth Avenue or Broad- 
way Railroad. 

Eleventh Street was a convenient place to live in ; we 
could walk around to the Ascension Church, where Dr. 
Bedell was preaching good sermons, and where we wor- 
shipped, or to AVashington Square, where the children 
picked the first dandelions. Our friends and family re- 
lations were all near us, and of a summer evening we 
could walk down to the theatres, where we saw Laura 
Keene, Joe Jefferson, and Sothern play in Out American 
Cousin. I saw Sothern's first trip into ten thousand 
pounds in Dundreary (he afterwards told me that little 
hop was an accident), and Joseph Jefferson's beautiful 
love-making in the funny part he assumed so cleverly. 
I saw in those days old Wallack, most gallant of Don 
Caesar de Bazans, and also The Scholar^ a fine old play, 
and young Lester Wallack coming on, to be the pride 
and delight of the town, as handsome as Count d'Orsay, 
and always well dressed. I remember how beautifully 
somebody, perhaps Walcot, played in Yictorine, delight- 
ful dream! and how gay were the Placides. It all 
seems so stately and excellent, such consummate act- 
ing, as I look back on it. Then it was not so far (in 
the omnibus) but that we went down comfortably to 
Burton's little theatre, near or on Park Place, to see 
what he called A Tempest in a Teajpot. And then 
there was his own fine rendering of CaUban in the 
greatest of Shakespeare's plays. I remember going to 
see this with Judge Kent, Mr. Ruggles, and Henry T. 



THE NEW YOKK OF TWENTY YEARS AGO 179 

Tuckerman in the party, and they all gave me their rem- 
iniscences of the great actors they had seen in this play. 

Dear me ! these recollections seem to take me back 
a hundred years. 

Dod worth's Hall was just across the vivacious Broad- 
way from Eleventh Street, and there we went to hear 
Fanny Kemble. Occasionally, of a Sunday, I went to 
Grace Church, considered then the fashionable church, 
with old Brown for the sexton, who arranged not only 
all the funerals, but all the weddings and balls, and 
all the parties, and whose rector went to so many din- 
ners that the wicked said that he occasionally read, 
" Cherubim and Terrapin continually do cry." Old 
Brown had the most astonishing memory I ever met ; 
he was beyond even the Eoyal famil}'- of England. He 
knew more about us than we did ourselves. 

At a ball he turned to a lady, as she was going out, 
and remarked, facetiously, " Did you see Miss Stockman, 
all draped with ivy? Well, her gown is that torn that 
she is a ruin." Brown was a wit and a punster, and he 
amused New York for forty years. I remember com- 
ing out of a magnificent ball at Mrs. Gerry's, or Mr. 
Peter Goelet's house, corner of Mneteenth Street and 
Broadway, when Brown vouchsafed the information, as 
I got into my carriage, " Ah, madame, this has been an 
aristocratic assemblage ; no mixture here?^ I remember 
that ball, in the fine, old, stately rooms, and that my 
kind hostess, when the "german" crowded us, took me 
behind the supper-table, where Peter Yan Dj^ck, black- 
est of men and best of cooks, was carving a most succu- 
lent filet. 

There are no such oysters, terrapin, or canvas-back 
duck as there were in those days ; the race is extinct. 
It is strange how things degenerate. At this ball we 



180 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

had champagne out of silver goblets ! Peter Yan Djck 
and his assistants were so indispensable at the balls and 
dinners that a young English nobleman asked his hostess 
if our black servants were not very much alike. It did 
not occur to the man accustomed to a ducal entourage 
that we passed them on from one to another. 

The women were dressed in large hoops then, and in 
flounced dresses with much real lace, and the hair flow- 
ing downward with falling garlands, strictly like pict- 
ures of Eugenie. Indeed, so very slavish was the copy 
of Eugenie that the Eev. Norman McLeod, in an arti- 
cle for Harper's Magazine in 1868, wrote : " j^o Eng- 
lish woman asks if her dress is appropriate to herself 
or fitted to her husband's purse ; she simply asks, ' Is 
it like the Empress of the French V " 

Eugenie, however, is to be remembered with grati- 
tude, for she introduced small bonnets. We used to 
wear to the theatre little bonnets called " fanchons," a 
sort of half-handkerchief tied over the head, which ob- 
structed no one's view. 

Broadway in those days was a favorite promenade, 
to give way later to the Fifth Avenue, and of a Sunday 
we would walk up Fifth Avenue almost to Twenty- 
third Street, although that was rather a stretch ; and 
the Hippodrome occupied the lots now covered by* the 
Fifth Avenue Hotel. 

I passed, the other day, the deserted house of Mrs. 
Gerry, which I used to think so lordly. It stands alone 
now amid the surrounding sky-scrapers, and reminds 
me of Don Quixote going out to fight the windmills. 
It should always remain to mark the difference between 
the past and the present. 

Fifth Avenue near Tenth Street, and the upper side 
of AVashington Square, have changed less than any part 



THE NEW YOKK OF TWENTY YEARS AGO 181 

of ]S"ew York that I remember. All that fashionable 
locale near the JSTew York Hotel, and the houses oppo- 
site of Mrs. Mary Jones and Mrs. Coif ord Jones, queens of 
fashion — all have disappeared before the sledge-hammer 
of progress. 

!N"o. 6 West Eleventh Street became untenantable, as 
I have said, and we moved up to the remote Thirty- 
second Street — another convenient street. From its win- 
dows I saw many regiments march to the war, and heard 
the Battle Hymn of the Eepublic for the first time. 

There I lived for nearly thirty years, and saw a great 
city grow up above us. I saw much of the society of 
that era. It was the fashion for people to stay in town 
more than it is now. We seldom left our house except- 
ing for three months in summer ; but we were fortunate 
in having two country homes at our disposition, and we 
made visits about ISTew York, especially to the delight- 
ful "Nevis," the house of Hon. James A. Hamilton, 
whence Miss Mary Morris Hamilton would drive me to 
Mr. Aspinwall's beautiful home. He would load us down 
with greenhouse flowers, and then we would drive on 
to see Washington Irving. I remember the charming 
old gentleman looking at our flowers and saying, " Oh, 
how magnificent ! That is the Deity's idea of how 
things should be done ! Why do we ever try to do any- 
thing?" 

Mr. Irving gave me his autograph on one of these occa- 
sions, and I took it with me to the Alhambra, and read 
it over in the window of his own room which he made 
so world-famous. I plucked an ivy- leaf from his win- 
dow where he looked on the demure Spanish beauty, 
and gazed reverently at his signature in the travellers' 
book. These are some of the joys of travel. 

Miss Angelica Hamilton, a woman of delightful man- 



183 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

ners, married the Hon. R. M. Blatchford, who was to Mr. 
Webster what Atticus was to Cicero — a most faithful 
friend. His purse was always open to the Defender, 
and I remember that he said, " Mr. Webster was always 
short just five hundred dollars." I am afraid it was 
sometimes more. Mr. Blatchford took his elegant wife 
to Europe. Her manners were supremely beautiful ; I 
would rather have had them than the beauty of Helen 
of Troy or the wit of Aspasia. She died, alas ! soon 
after. 

But her sister, Mrs. Schuyler, was the thinker and 
scholar of this distinguished family ; indeed, of all the 
women I have known she was one of the most dis- 
tinguished. Miss Mary Morris Hamilton, my dearest 
friend, after the death of this sister, married her broth- 
er-in-law, George L. Schuyler, who was one of the wits 
of society. In their house in Thirty-first Street I met 
Edward Everett, Laurence Oliphant and his lovely 
wife, George MacDonald, and many another English 
author. This dear woman held the most attractive of 
the fashionable salons of her day. 

When I went to Eome in 1885 I happened to meet 
Mrs. Wynne Finch, the mother of Mrs. Ohphant. She 
was most anxious to hear of me the last news of this 
beloved daughter, who with her husband had adopted 
the strange religious leadership of one Harris, had been 
separated by him from her husband and her kindred 
after much loss of money and happiness, but they had 
come together again and went off to convert the Jews 
at Haifa. They both wrote strange books and had alto- 
gether a most romantic history. 

Mrs. Wynne Finch was a most elegant and cosmo- 
politan woman, and had a salon in Paris for years. She 
gave me an interesting account of Madame Mohl, that 



SOCIAL AND GEOGBAPHICAL CHANGES 183 

extraordinary person, whose hatred of Louis JN'apoleon 
was very marked. On one occasion, Avishing to call on 
her friend the Queen of Holland at the Tuileries, she said 
to her coachman, " Drive to the Tuileries." Her servants 
knew her antipathy. " I do not know the way there, 
madame," said the tactful cocker^ and she was so delighted 
with his tact that she jumped out of her carriage and 
kissed him on the spot ! 

Mrs. Wynne Finch by her first marriage had been 
Mrs. L'Estrange, and had many lovely daughters and 
gifted sons, but none of them had the strange, eventful 
history of poor Mrs. Laurence Oliphant, the slave of a 
too exacting conscience. 

But if I dare to unfold these memories, which cluster 
about the house of Hamilton and Schuyler, I shall write 
forever. 

The balls outgrew the private residences, and Del- 
monico's, at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Fifth 
Avenue (now, alas! a carpet store), became the site for 
the Patriarchs' and the Assembly balls and the private 
parties at which daughters were introduced. One lib- 
eral gentleman gave a ball there at which he introduced 
a pond with live swans floating on the water. 

" That is done to propitiate the Ledas (leaders) of so- 
ciety, I suppose," said a wit. 

These beautiful rooms, many blue parlors going off in 
suites, were the scene of a fine fancy ball in the 'TO's. 
Mrs. Belmont was at the head of it, and it was enor- 
mously successful. I remember being received, as I en- 
tered, by Mr. Gracie King in a court suit, which he had 
inherited from his father, worn by Hon. Kufus King 
when Minister to England. He looked his part most 
completely. 

These rooms were also the scene of a very good story 



184 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

told by Governor Fish of his own experience. The 
leaders of the german were not always very polite to 
the elderly, but of course they have improved since. 

The Hon. Hamilton Fish, just home from Grant's 
cabinet, was doubtless our first citizen ; he was the most 
amiable and quietly dignified and self-effacing of great 
men. He had accompanied his beautiful daughters to 
a ball at Delmonico's, and when they were to dance the 
german he retired to an adjacent parlor to await their 
pleasure. 

A young man came up to him and said, " Want that 
chair, sir, for the german." The Governor gave it up 
peacefully and retreated to another room, when pres- 
ently another dancer followed him, and said : 

" Have to get out of this, old gentleman. "Want the 
chair for the german." 

The Governor went still farther afield, w^hen a third 
approached him. 

" Will you tell me where 1 am to go ?" he asked. 

" Well," said E'o. 3, " if I were you, old man, I think 
I would go home." 

" It was not always thus," but I am afraid that it was 
sometimes. Young men did not, as a rule, turn gov- 
ernors and statesmen out of the ball-room, but the ger- 
man was very exacting, and they needed the chairs. 
Later on the Patriarchs and the Assemblies moved on 
to the upper Delmonico's, which is now nearly a thing 
of the past. 

ISTo account of old ^N'ew York, or even recent I^ew 
York, could be complete without a mention of Mrs. 
J. J. Astor, the mother of William Waldorf Astor, the 
very grande dame^ the great entertainer, and the wom- 
an of thought, of heart, and of most charitable life. 
Mrs. Astor's balls and dinners were perhaps the finest 



MES. J. J. ASTOR — MES. HAMILTON FISH 185 

that IsTew York boasted for twenty years. She had 
great taste in floral decoration, and at her splendid balls 
she would cover the clock-face with flowers, a most 
gracious way of hinting that we were not to go home 
early. Of course, her house, her fine pictures, and her 
admirable supper were always festive ; but her welcome, 
and that of her kind, generous, unpretending husband, 
formed the real luxury of the reception. 

She was the first of our rich women to wear many 
diamonds, and she always looked as if they wearied her. 
Her heart was not in this world, or its pomps and vani- 
ties. She was most interested when she was down at 
the Newsboys' Lodging-house, with the dirty hands of 
the little ragamuffins in hers, as she told them stories ; 
and she delighted to fill her windows, as she did on the 
day of General Grant's funeral, with shop-girls, who saw 
from that coign of vantage that historical spectacle. 
Philanthropy, indeed, was her passion. 

She was a very highly educated woman, and superin- 
tended the final touches to her son's education in Europe 
for several years. She had a knowledge of and love for 
music. Indeed, such a leader in the curious cong-lom- 
erate which we call our society was most elevating and 
purifying ; her loss was immeasurable. 

Another such leader was Mrs. Hamilton Fish, a woman 
of the broadest good sense and a tact which, in her long 
life before the public, as wife of governor, senator, and 
secretary of state, was always most exactingly tested, 
and was never found wanting. She was an elegant, 
stately-looking woman, and a dear and good one. She 
had a sly little sense of and love for humor, but I do not 
believe that any one ever saw her laugh at anybody. 
She was extremely unselfish with her time and strength. 
I fear Washington killed her. 



186 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Mrs. Belmont, very beautiful, very elegant, with a 
gift of exclusiveness, was another leader whom I greatly 
admired. She seemed to me to have most unusual qual- 
ities. The breath of scandal never touched her ; she 
could walk over burning ploughshares and not burn her 
delicate feet. Without making anj^- pretensions, she had 
admirable common -sense, enjoyed travel and pictures, 
and all the refinements of the wealth so freely lavished 
upon her. She was a good mother and a good friend. 
I owed to her very much of my pleasure in twenty years 
of 'New York, and I shall always mourn for these three 
ladies, because the}^ filled not only the place of friend, 
but they filled my ideal of what ladies should be. 

Mr. Belmont had great talents for an entertainer ; he 
liked it, and he took trouble for it. He had the best 
table service, the most appropriate livery, the hand- 
somest house, and the best picture-gallery in town, and 
that as long a^go as 186i. 

I feel always wounded as I go by that hospitable 
corner, and see that a sky-scraper has filled in the spot 
where the early traditions of good society were so elab- 
orately cultivated in the Belmont house. 

Another hospitable hostess was Mrs. S. L. M., Barlow. 
When death took her a ray of sunlight went out of all 
our lives. That cheery laugh, that open hand, that 
noble heart! Peace to her ashes! She has "left no 
copy." 

Between 1870 and 1890 there blossomed in ISTew York 
the fair and consummate flower of art ; picture-galleries 
began to be formed and beautiful houses to be built. 
The day of the architect and the internal decorator be- 
came a bright one, and it was possible to point to the 
Eoman Catholic Cathedral, the Jewish Synagogue, and 
many fine churches and some palaces as movements on- 



EARLY PATRONS OF AET 187 

ward and upward. The palaces have increased wonder- 
fully in the last ten years. 

I remember taking a friend in one day to the picture- 
galleries of Mr. Stewart, Mr. John Taylor Johnson, and 
Mr. M. O. Eoberts, and there were in that neighborhood 
the fine collection of Mr. Belmont and Mr. Cutting, 
while up town Mr. John Wolfe and Miss Kitty Wolfe 
had delightful pictures. Mr. Marquand, always a lib- 
eral patron of art, has, I believe, denuded his fine house 
of its treasures in order to enrich the Museum of Art. 
Mr. Morris K. Jesup was an early patron of American 
art, and at his dinners one could gaze into the depths of 
an American forest painted by Kensett, or on the ruins 
of the Acropolis by Church. All these splendid collec- 
tions but the latter are now dispersed, and only the 
very valuable gallery of Mr. W. H. Yanderbilt remains 
intact, I believe — a singular exemplification of the 
changeful character of ISTew York. 

But JSTew York was full of handsome houses and good 
dinners. Mrs. William Astor built a ballroom to her 
superb house and made it a picture-gallery, where every 
sense of beauty was gratified. Alas ! not one stone re- 
mains upon another of that scene of radiant hospitality. 
The pictures are, however, safe in another and more 
beautiful house. 

Such a change in the memory of one person is, how- 
ever, very remarkable. I only know one family who 
are living in the same house which they occupied when 
I first came to New York. 

The radical changes in society from the small, well- 
considered hundreds to the countless thousands have 
of course destroyed the neighborly character of the 
strange conglomerate. It is more ornamental and much 
more luxurious now than then. 



188 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

The dinners were every day gaining in a wealth of 
floral decoration ; the chef had long since assumed his 
place in luxurious houses. But the pen would be weary 
that attempted the business of chronicling JSTew York 
dinners even of twenty years ago. 

I remember one, which I may be permitted to describe, 
as it was given to a President. 

About 1877 Mrs. Marshall O. Koberts entertained 
President Hayes in that fine dining-room — it has few 
superiors to-day — where the white marble trim stair- 
cases led up to a beautiful balcony and the walls were 
hung with pictures. 

Mr. Story was present, and so was Mr. Evarts, then 
Secretary of State ; Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, Judge Brady, 
the Hon. Clarence Seward, the Hon. John Jay, and 
some very brilliant women. 

Mrs. Hayes was a remarkable woman. Mr. Story said 
she was the apotheosis of the Indian type, an American 
red Indian. She was very dark, with the most extraor- 
dinary massive hair of intense blackness, and the fine 
dark eye which belongs to such hair, high cheek-bones, 
a very large mouth full of splendid teeth, and withal a 
feminine grace and beauty and a most gentle expres- 
sion. 

The conversation was gay and witty and informal. 
Mr. Evarts, who alwa3^s commanded the situation, told 
his best stories, and on being asked if he did not find 
the drinking of " different kinds of wines at a dinner " 
injurious, said, "]S"o, it is the indifferent wines which 
trouble me." 

I suppose no company was then considered complete 
without Judge Brad}^, who was a wit and humorist 
of the highest character. He was always led up to 
his best by Mr. Clarence Seward, who supplemented 



ME. EVAETS AND ME. STORY 189 

the Judge's Irish overflow by his own keen wit. This 
noble pair of wits played then the same parts which the 
Hon. Chauncey M. Depew and General Horace Porter 
take now at the dinners which are fortunate enough to 
secure them. 

Mr. Story, on being promised a supper at the Century 
Club, answered, " And Story 'd earn an animated bust !" 
Judge Brady made a speech in German, and Mr. Evarts 
(at the request of a lady) told his famous donkey story, 
not, however, without an eloquent mock protest, which 
was overruled. "That you, madame, a literary lady, 
devoted to the highest thoughts, should show such an 
interest in a donkey is incredible." 

" But tell it to Mr. Story, who has been so long ban- 
ished from his native land." 

^'A7id donkeys P'^ 

So Mr. Evarts began with a long discourse as to the 
diificulty of finding a donkey in 'New York for his little 
daughter : finally he had to go to ;N"ew Jersey for one. 
Having got it up to his country-place, the donkey mis- 
erably howled and groaned, to the despair of the tender- 
hearted little girl. However, after listening awhile to 
the donkey's lamentations, she fetched a deep sigh of 
relief and said : 

" He won't be so lonesome after Father comes." 

"When this agreeable party broke up we went in to 
the picture-gallery, where stood a little marble daughter 
of Mr. Story's — I think, an " Ariadne." He and his son 
Waldo stopped and caressed it, as they might have done 
a relative. A lady present said to the President, " Does 
Mr. Evarts obey you?" 

" No, madame," said Mr. Hayes ; " wherever Mr. Ev- 
arts is, he governs." 

The Hon. John Jay, most genial and handsomest of 



190 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

men, was always an ornament to all the dinners of that 
day, and of all his days. As presiding officer of the 
Union League Club he was as much of an attraction 
as Sir Frederic Leighton at the opening of the Eoyal 
Academy in London. 

In Mr. Jay, character, learning, and suavity, patriot- 
ism and strength, and " that grand old name of gentle- 
man " met. He was the finest type of what blood can 
do. You saw his fair grandmother and his learned an- 
cestor who wore the ermine so spotlessly in every word 
and lineament and gesture. He was exactly the man 
for a foreign mission. 

And what record of those days could be worth much 
which left out the name of Travers, the wit, the bon- 
vivant, the preux chevalier? A more brilliant, scintil- 
lating mind seldom had a chance to impress itself on 
two or three decades of social life. Travers was a social 
hero, a constant joy and pleasure. 

Mr. Travers was so lucky as to stammer, which gave 
his words the last touch of success. You had to wait 
for them. His brain moved with such lightning rapid- 
ity that his lips could not catch his ideas. He had a 
subtle common-sense, which gave his wit startling em- 
phasis. He dared to tell truths which a stupid man 
could not have done ; and he grew to be the *' king's 
jester" for society, a generous heart, a royal host, a 
lovely and lovable friend, successful in all he undertook : 
he even met death with a joke. Some one said to him 
in his last illness, " Well, Travers, you have burned the 
candle at both ends." 

"Ye-es-s," said he, ''and now some-some-somebody 
has lighted it in the middle." 

He added greatly to the jollity of society while he 
lived, and has been deeply regretted, sincerely honored, 



THE BEAUTIES OF "76 191 

and faithfully remembered. To this fine, courageous 
soul were added a philanthropy and generosity which he 
carefully hid from the world. Like him was another 
wit and man of fashion, Griswold Grey, who " did good 
by stealth, and blushed to find it fame." Peace to their 
ashes 1 

Leonard W. Jerome, a singularly handsome man, was 
also famous in those days. He and Travers had made 
fortunes very suddenly, and proceeded to spend them 
magnificently. Mr. Jerome built a theatre in the then 
Union League Club House, where were given tableaux 
and private theatricals for charity, the like of which 
have never been seen since. Mrs. Ronalds made her 
first triumph there as prima donna ; and the beauties of 
1876 — Miss Minnie Stevens, Miss Adelaide Townsend, 
Mi^ Pussie Breeze , Miss May, Mrs. Rives, Mrs. Jones, 
Mrs. Hunt— lelFa record of loveliness which the pen 
of their lady -manager proudly records as one of the 
events of her life. 

I took charge of two sets of tableaux at this theatre ; 
and we returned such a fabulous sum for the " Southern 
Relief" in 1868, and in 1876 for the Centennial, that I 
hesitate to record it for fear of being suspected of exag- 
geration. Times were not so hard as they are now. 

I remember a dinner at J^ewport (one of many) given 
to Bret Harte by the publisher, Mr. Charles J. Peter- 
son, on his first arrival from California, which was nota- 
ble for its good talk. 

Hon. George Bancroft, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe (still 
young and lovely at seventy-seven), Mr. John B. La- 
trobe, of Baltimore ; the Hon. George Boker, dramatist 
and man of fashion ; Mrs. Boker, very handsome, were 
conspicuous guests, and the company included about 
six more, all summoned to do honor to the young man 



4- 



193 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

who leaped from obscurity to the very heights of Olym- 
pus in two bounds — The Luck of Roaring Camp and 
The Heathen Chinee. 

" Just think of the degradation of going down to 
posterity as the author of such trash as The Heathen 
Chinee^^ he said to me at that dinner. 

He was a slender, rather handsome young man with 
very black hair, and looked as Dickens did at his age. 
He was pathetically pleased to get rid of California, 
which he hated. He admired some wild daisies which 
decorated Mrs. Peterson's always beautiful table, and 
showed them to his wife. He gave me such an idea 
of the dreariness, absence of color, and degradation 
of a mining camp that I never read one of his immor- 
tal stories that I do not seem to taste that dust -laden 
air. 

I had the pleasure during ten years to assist at lion- 
izing this great genius, and he was so natural, simple, 
and charming that he became a familiar figure in my 
family. I met him in London at the height of his for- 
eign fame, in 1884. White-haired and ruddy-faced, he 
had become a tj^pical John Bull. I saw his pleasure 
when a beautiful young girl recited Her Letter before 
a grand company of mingled American and English 
friends — a dinner which brought Henry James, Hamil- 
ilton Aide, Cyrus W. Field, Sir John and Lady Con- 
stance Leslie, the Hon. Mrs. Wellesley, Mrs. Procter, 
Mr. Lowell, and many others together — and I think his 
few words of delicate thanks and compliment to her 
were worthy of a prince ; and indeed he was, and is, a 
prince of genius. 

It is curious that his fellow-humorist and old friend 
John Hay expressed a similar disgust at the success 
of his famous Pilce County Ballads^ and wished that 



BOKER S DEAMAS 193 

he had never written Little Breeches. Mr. Hay has 
written so much of a different character that he can 
afford to acknowledge Little Breeches as a legitimate 
child of his varied and most elegant mind. Perhaps 
this poor little vagrant may live longer than any of 
them. Even Castilian Days may be put on the highest 
shelf before the Pihe County Ballads are removed 
from the library table. At any rate, neither author 
can call back these unloved children. Like Don John 
of Austria, that brave bo}^ who wore victory in his cap, 
they have been able to fight their own battles, and Jim 
Bludsoe commands the tears of the world. 

The Hon. George Boker, so well known as poet and 
patriot, was then in the very pride and prime of his 
beauty and fame. It is astonishing that his tragedies 
and plays could be put on the stage as they fell from 
his pen, almost without change. They are delightful 
reading. The Betrothal^ Calaynos, Anne Boleyn^ Leo- 
noT de Oitzman, and Francesca da Rimini are all de- 
hghtful. I wonder they are not more quoted and 
talked of to-day. His occasional odes had such celeb- 
rity during the war time that these, his delicate reveries, 
seemed to slip out of men's minds. I find a great 
many young poets dip into these volumes and bring 
away much gold. The Podesta^s Daughter^ The Ode to 
England^ The Rose of Granada, are mines of poetical 
wealth. 

Of Boker's sonnets Leigh Hunt said that "they ex- 
celled all sonnets, excepting those of Shakespeare." 
They are delicious ; two which occur to me, Hence, Cold 
Despair ! and To Win and Lose Thee, are among the 
most beautiful that he wrote. This rare man, born to 
fortune and to a fashionable position which he enjoyed, 
kept up his classics and his literary work to the end. 

13 



194 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

He founded the first Union League Club in the United 
States, and during and after war times was an eminent- 
1}^ useful citizen as well as poet. 

Indeed, this famous dinner in that beautiful old 
Elizabethan house built by Mr. De Lancey Kane, and 
called Red Cross, and in what I still consider one of 
the handsomest rooms at Newport, was often quoted by 
Mr. Bancroft as memorable for Mr. Boker's shinins: talk 
on that day. There was something of the grandeur and 
gloom of Hawthorne about Mr. Boker when he was se- 
rious. At a dinner he preferred to be humorous. His 
temperament was changeful, as is always the case with 
the children of genius. He was a gifted creature, and 
most generous to poor authors, for whom he drew many 
a check. 

He was afterwards minister to Turkey, and to Rus- 
sia, where he distinguished himself, and I know no man 
who seemed to me to have led more nobly the dual life 
of man of the world and man of the library. He had 
a beautiful head and the manners of Lord Chester- 
field. 

The venerable George Calvert, the real Lord Balti- 
more, was one of the ornaments of the Newport of that 
day. He was in some way a descendant (through the 
distaff side) of Eubens, and said that he owed his " lit- 
tle independence" to him. He owned some of his 
pictures. He was a sweet and gifted personage, who 
wrote some very attractive books. I used every sum- 
mer at Newport to take tea with him and his lovely 
wife. It was a glimpse of the past like to a whiff of 
rose potpourri. What treasures of anecdote that life 
of ninety years held ! And he appropriately wrote his 
own biography in a book called A Gentleman. 

Miss Jane Stuart, daughter of the painter Gilbert 



THE GORGEOUS VANDERBILT HOUSES 195 

Stuart, painted my picture at this time. She asked me 
to sit to her, and I gladly accepted the opportunity to 
hear her talk of her father. Her conversations I wrote 
down and have them yet. It was a very badly drawn 
picture, but she gave it to me, asking that she might 
keep it during her life. When I returned from Europe 
it had passed into other hands, and I have never recov- 
ered it; but I have the memory of a very queer, de- 
lightful old lady left. 

I quote from my journal, February, 1889, of the ga}^ 
season which preceded Lent, to mark the contrast be- 
tween that year and another season of — well, we will 
say twenty years before. In that time the gorgeous 
palaces of the Yanderbilts had been built ; Mr. W. H. 
Yanderbilt Avas founding his superb galler}^ and his son 
Cornelius had just opened the beautiful house at the 
corner of Fift3^-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue. I re- 
member their first house-warming in this new chateau- 
like house, in which orchids filled the fireplace and chim- 
ney-piece, simulating a veritable fire. But perhaps the 
most unique and rare entertainment given by Mrs. Cor- 
nelius Yanderbilt was in the hiring of Coquelin to en- 
tertain the Thursday Evening Club. He and his son, 
then a nice-looking boy, presented one scene of a play, 
Le Mariage Force. The great actor himself recited 
several pieces. It was a party which recalled the pict- 
ure of Louis XIY. supping with Moliere. A gorgeous 
supper followed, society was at its verj^ best, and Herr 
Kalisch sang. 

Again, Mrs. Henry Yillard, in the picturesque Tiffany 
Flats, entertained the Drawing-Koom Club, with Edison 
and his phonograph, songs from Lilli Lehmann, with 
Bergner and Bendix on violin and cello. These artists 
sang and played into the phonograph, and realized Mun- 



196 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

chausen's wild tale of the music frozen up in the trum- 
pet. Madame Lehmann looked handsome in her dress 
brocaded with pearls. With Koyal orders across her 
ample corsage, she seemed the genius of Wagner's 
music. 

Then there was a remarkable sale of pictures at Chick- 
ering Hall : Corots, Daubignys, a charming Diaz, a fine 
Detaille, and a splendid Verboeckhoven — rather good 
for a republican city in one month. 

And, mixed in with this conglomeration, a large party 
of Roman Catholic pilgrims left for Rome and the Holy 
Land, bound on a religious pilgrimage, after the fashion 
of the eleventh century. We thought of reviving the 
Crusades in order to have a little change ! 

Just then society left for Washington to attend the 
inauguration of General Harrison. One rich New-Yorker 
paid $500 a week for a house. 

The weather was very cold, and I started on a round 
of visits from Washington Square to Eighty -ninth 
Street. 

After taking a journey almost like going to Washing- 
ton, I arrived at a beautiful city, w^hich I had never 
seen before (all had been empty lots a few years be- 
fore), and found myself in a very handsome house; 
my hostess in primrose crepe, with a bunch of yellow 
roses in her hand. It was summer and spring combined, 
while without the thermometer marked ten degrees be- 
low zero. 

Such are the surprises of this city of Aladdin, this 
wonderful reward of energy and the industry of a new 
world. 

Unfortunately, the American builds his palace, fills it 
with the triumphs of art, the ivory and gold of Samar- 
kand, the infinite dreams of the Japanese and the Arab ; 



THE GOSSIP OF SOCIETY 197 

he lines it with American comforts ; he puts his beauti- 
ful wife in a rose-colored boudoir and gives her all the 
luxury of a queen ; she drives the best horses and 
gives the best of dinners, and hears all the artists in 
the world sing. And then they both conclude that 
they are bored, and they lock up all this luxury, go 
off to London or Home or Paris, and live contentedly 
in a very inferior apartment, and are apparently en- 
tirely content. 

It was somewhere in the '70's that the fiend gos- 
sip came into New York society to stay. The first 
newspaper outburst that I remember was after the 
Beecher trial, which was a terrible beginning. Then 
the papers began with attacks upon women. There 
were stories of kleptomaniacs, and of a young and fash- 
ionable man who had stolen his cousin's ring at a din- 
ner-party, etc., etc. None of tliis sort of story was al- 
lowed at the dinners of Mrs. Astor, Mrs. Belmont, or 
Mrs. Fish. I can imagine the fine face of the latter 
freezing into marble had any one opened such a door of 
Bluebeard's closet in her stately presence. 

Society had to sustain some shocks, no doubt, in those 
days. Human nature was still human nature, but there 
was not added on the " might, should, or could be " 
tense as now. Every one was considered innocent until 
he was proved to be guilty. Now gossip makes every 
young and pretty person guilty unless she is proved to 
be innocent. This habit of free speaking at ladies' 
lunches has impaired society ; it has doubtless led to 
many of the tragedies of divorce and marital un happi- 
ness. Could society be deaf and dumb and Congress 
abolished for a season, what a happy and peaceful life 
one could lead ! 

" Censorious world, madame ! censorious world !" as 



198 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Mephistopheles sa3^s in the play to the old woman. 
But it is not worthy the title of the old Eoman " Cen- 
sor." It is idle tittle-tattle, sound and fury, signifying 
nothing. Therefore I have purposely abstained from 
retailing, from the vast stores at my command, the 
piquant stories of Isew York fashionable life, of which 
I know, alas ! too many. Posterity will not need them ; 
it is better off without them. 

I do not believe that New York has been a bad or a 
dissolute city ; I think it has had the folly to wish to 
appear so occasionally, and I think that gossip has done 
the rest. Eminent and beautiful lives, most charminof 
and happy households, have held their own here, in spite 
of luxury and fashion. And what a small part of any 
city is any so-called fashionable circle ! To be sure, all 
that is conspicuous is important, for all eyes are fixed 
on that circle; but its changeful character is the safe- 
guard against bad examples. 

When Posterity reads, as it doubtless will, our causes 
celebres — our buried newspapers — it will be apt to 
think that we were very wicked, that the men's clubs 
were instituted to take away the characters of women, 
that society was only another name for a black ej^e. 
But that was not so. New York at the end of the 
nineteenth century was neither Sodom nor Gomor- 
rah. 

Little children tripped by to school and went home to 
happy young mothers. The opera and the theatre were 
filled with handsome, beautiful, well-to-do people; the 
art-o:alleries and museums were throno^ed with ea2:er 
learners ; and, better than all, Sunday was a quiet day, 
consecrated to religious observances. The scene in the 
hundreds of churches in New York told the story of a 
Christian and a law-loving people. The unfinished sky- 



PHILANTHROPY OF FASHIONABLE PEOPLE 199 

scrapers, the holes in Fifth Avenue, are only unfinished 
jobs, dear Posterity, not the prisons under the Neva or 
the piomhi of Yen ice ! There may have been a few 
cases of unjust imprisonment, but the Tombs was visit- 
ed daily by religious and charitable women. Judge us 
lightly, Posterity. We might have been better, but we 
might also have been infinitely worse. And had it not 
been for the mistaken representation of many a well- 
known circumstance, through the work of the fiend gossip, 
society would have been more dignified and more secure 
than it is. It seems impossible, when one is travelling 
in Europe and away from it all, or when buried in the 
delicious seclusion of a library, that such improbable 
stories can have any interest for reasonable people, and 
yet no one can hear them perpetually without being in- 
terested and " believing something." 

Therefore, so far as this poor little Epistle is concerned, 
I will not put in one word of gossip, not even in a post- 
script, believing, dear Posterity, that you will have bet- 
ter reading than that. But I will bear most grateful 
testimony to the philanthropy and the generous giving 
to all good objects of the fashionable people of my day 
in ISTew York. It was from the very highest circles 
of the most conspicuous fashion that the money was 
raised for the Nursery and Child's Hospital, and for the 
Woman's Hospital; and many will remember with grati- 
tude the noble benefaction of Mrs. George W. Cullum, 
who, stricken by the fell disease herself, founded the 
Cancer Hospital, the grandest of all; the contributions 
of the Yanderbilt family to the Medical Science of the 
day, giving millions at a time; Mr. Peter Coopers 
foundation of the Cooper Union ; and the almost un- 
paralleled munificence of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, tes- 
tify that worldly success does not harden the heart, 



200 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

but that these kind hearts consider wealth as a trust. 
The visits of the foremost young daughters of fashion 
to the poor, the sick, and the prisoners have also the 
deepest significance, and these are the glories of New 
York. 



CHAPTER XII 

Second Visit to London — A Day in the House of Commons — London 
in 1886 — The Ascot Races and Dr. Holmes — My Presentation at 
Court and a State Ball at, Buckingham Palace — A Supper with 
Irving at the Beefsteak Club — Mr. Gladstone and the Chapel 
Royal — A Dinner with Sir John Millais — Mr. Browning, Sir 
Frederic Leighton, Mrs. Procter, and Du Maurier. 

When I went to England in 1884, after an interval 
of many years, I found London a different place. It 
seemed twice as large, and the trouble was where to be- 
gin. Fortunately for me, Mr. Lowell was our minister, 
and, as an old friend, he was certain to do all that he 
could. His second wife, although an invalid, came to 
take me to drive, and invited me to her receptions, and 
did all for me that an invalid could do. When I showed 
her my letters she told me that I would find the liter- 
ary celebrities the hardest to meet, which indeed was 
the case ; but she added, " Mr. Lowell and Mr. Hoppin 
will help you." Mr. W. J. Hoppin was the Secretary 
of Legation, and most popular and agreeable. I need 
not say what Mr. Lowell was ; no man ever enjoyed 
a greater share of England's homage than he did. 
Through my letters and through him I became ac- 
quainted with Edmund Gosse, Sir Frederic Leighton, 
Andrew Lang, Walter Herries Pollock, Mrs. E.Lynn Lin- 
ton, Mr. Anstey (author of Vice Versa), and at the house 
of our countryman, James McHenry, I found the open 
sesame to Holland House. Mr. Lowell introduced me 
to Mrs. Procter, " Barry Corn wall's" widow, who indeed 



203 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

had a literary belonging almost impossible to measure. 
This admirable and interesting woman admitted me to 
something like intimacy, and I enjoyed nothing so much 
in all England as her conversation. 

I had in this summer of 1884: many opportunities to 
hear the discussions in the House of Commons, at Mr. 
Lowell's request. Through the courtesy of Mrs. Peel, wife 
of the Speaker, I was admitted often to her seat in the 
Speaker's Gallery, a little wired-off uncomfortable place. 
I remember the last day of the session before the Whit- 
suntide recess. I heard Mr. Gladstone make a long and 
important speech. I heard Mr. Trevelyan, Lord Ean- 
dolph Churchill, Mr. Labouchere, Ashmead - Bartlett, 
Mr. O'Donnell, Mr. Parnell, Baron Worms, and several 
others. The attacks were upon Mr. Gladstone for not 
reinforcing Gordon. They were most bitter, but he re- 
pelled them with a grave indifference. When later on, 
in Eome, I heard of Gordon's death, how well I remem- 
bered that debate ! I certainly could not have chosen a 
better season in which to hear the combined wit and 
wisdom of the House of Commons. Mr. Ashmead-Bart- 
lett had a fluent and glib utterance. Mr. O'Donnell was 
fiery and inconsequent ; Lord Eandolph Churchill was 
very brilliant and severe. Mr. Labouchere is a clear, 
fluent speaker, as is also Mr. Trevelyan. Mr. Gladstone 
is one of the orators of the world, very like Wendell 
Phillips, who was the prince of orators. I do not dishke 
the reserve of English speech, and I must make my com- 
pliment to the Prince of Wales, a most graceful and easy 
speaker. I heard him later on at the reception of Austra- 
lian gentlemen at the "Heatheries," and very often since. 

I heard a great deal of reading and reciting in Eng- 
lish salons. That reading which as girls we used to do, 
in country-houses, of favorite poems was done in superb 



PRIVATE THEATRICALS IN LONDON 203 

salons by experienced declaimers. I sat by Browning's 
side twice as a woman with a fine voice recited Herve 
Riel and How they Brought the Good News from Ghent 
to Aix. I asked him if it pleased him. He said, " Yes, 
I am mortal, but I like a foretaste of immortality." He 
said the prettiest verse that Longfellow had ever written 
was : 

"Then choose from the favored volume 
The poem of thy choice, 
And add to the rhyme of the poet 
The music of thy voice." 

It seemed as if society were returning again to that 
golden age when Tasso read his sonnets before the Duke 
d'Este ; when Petrarch, stretched upon the grass, poured 
forth his thoughts to Laura (she in her green gown 
embroidered with violets). 

Among other intellectual amusements was the rage 
for private theatricals, in which the Hon. Claude Pon- 
sonby took a leading part, as did Mr. Hamilton Aide, 
and I saw one of Lady Archibald Campbell's reproduc- 
tions of As You Like It. These were all remarkably 
well done. I also saw the mask of Comus at the Tem- 
ple Church and Court, Princess Louise being the especial 
guest, as she is an honorary barrister and a member of 
the Temple. 

I made an exhaustive study of old London, going to 
the Tower, to the Charterhouse, where poor Colonel 
l^ewcome said " Adsum" ; also to E'ewgate, the seven 
churches of Christopher Wren, Lambeth Palace, and the 
oldest houses I could find. This was most instructive 
and delightful. I advise all travellers to buy a Bae- 
deker's Guide and to go over London in this way. 

London Avas beautiful in June, in all the pride of the 
season. At the Buckingham Palace Hotel we were sa- 



204 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEKITY 

luted daily by the Queen's Highlanders playing the bag- 
pipes, as the scarlet soldiers marched to guard mounting 
at St. James's fine old historical palace. This is of itself 
worth coming to London for. And I went to see the 
"coaches," a royal display with Lord Charles Beresford 
and the Prince of Wales on the box, two very popular men. 
It takes a cultivated nerve to bear the crowd in Pic- 
cadilly, and to be out through such a scene as this is a 
trial. My hostess was a marchioness herself, one of the 
handsome gay " swells," and she told me who everybody 
was. I thought the mixed liveries presented an incon- 
gruous appearance, and told her I liked better the full 
figure of a coachman, wig and knee-breeches, which was 
the fashion when I had first seen London. Now the 
glory of " Jeems Yellowplush " and of the red breeches 
seems to be dulled. Certainly if one flunky is pow- 
dered they should all be powdered. She told me I was 
too exigeant^ that I wanted all of old London and new 
London ; but, indeed, I might well have been satisfied, 
for it was a brilliant day. 

I went to some small lunches in this visit, saw the 
Prince and Princess of Wales go by often, and I gazed 
upon many of the great beauties. I went to the open- 
ing of galleries and museums, and heard the Prince make 
many a speech, which he did very well. I also heard 
the Duke of Westminster, Sir Coutts Lindsay, the Mar- 
quis of Hartington, Clifford Greville, and Professor 
Tyndall make excellent speeches on the subject of Sunday 
opening, for the poor, of all the galleries and museums 
of London. Indeed, the Duke of Westminster promised 
to throw open the galleries of Grosvenor House, with 
its priceless treasures of paintings and other works of 
art, for this worthy purpose. 

London is far ahead of us in this matter of giving to 



FIRST VISIT TO WINDSOR 205 

the poor agreeable Sunday afternoons. I wish that we 
could emulate this noble and wise generosity. 

I was admitted by the card of the Hon. Mrs. Welles- 
ley to see the splendid collection of pictures at Gros- 
venor House. How well I remember the '' Blue Boy " 
of Sir Joshua, and the empty space where had hung 
Mr. Gladstone's picture, recently taken down, owing to 
the famous quarrel of the Duke of Westminster with 
Mr. Gladstone. The outlook from the windows of Gros- 
venor House into a delightful private park was most ex- 
quisite. This gallery and that of Sir Eichard Wallace 
were very difiBcult to see, reqairing private influence; 
but they well repaid all the effort. In my case, fortu- 
natel}^, it came easily. I suppose the collection of Sir 
Richard Wallace was as choice and rich, particularly in 
examples of the Dutch school, as any in London. 

And I paid a visit to a friend who had a lovely cottage 
at Ascot, that royal suburb. It was a most charming 
experience of the spring in England, and most interest- 
ing, to see the woods full of primroses, and the loyal 
Tory ladies plucking them in honor of Beaconsfield, who 
had died in 1881. 

The court was in mourning for the Queen's youngest 
son, but we saw the castle as it is shown to strangers. 

We drove to Windsor, in which royal town my hostess 
bought her green groceries, under the very shadow of 
that feudal fortress, that royal residence, which covers 
fifty acres of ground with its splendid stone- work. 'No 
palace in this world has ever impressed me like Wind- 
sor, and I have seen nearly all the greatest and most 
royal ones. The scarlet sentinels stood by its open gate. 
As I looked up at its towering grandeur a few soldiers 
rode out ; then came a carriage with four outriders ; in 
it was the Queen in deep mourning, with some of the 



306 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

young princesses of Hesse. I saAv her again and again 
in the beautiful park under the Queen Anne elms, two 
equerries and a groom galloping after the carriage. 
Then we drove to Eton, and saw all the bright boys 
wearing mourning for their fellow-student the Duke of 
Albany. The Queen is very fond of the Eton boys. 

They wore round jackets, broad collars, high hats — 
the dear lads — with English pink and white on their 
healthy cheeks. I went into the church, paused before 
the statue or the effigy of the founder, Henry YI., and 
read on the walls the stories of great Etonians. When 
you read these histories of England's past you wonder 
that there can be an ignoble Englishman. 

After Ascot I paid other visits to friends in the coun- 
try, going down to the neighborhood of Charles Kings- 
ley's former home at Eversley. My hostess was kind 
enough to drive me to his church and grave — we found 
his memorial stone hung with ivy — a lovely and most 
picturesque old church and rectory, all rendered dear 
by the memory of a man who had done so much for 
literature, and whom I had seen on his last visit to 
JSTew York, at Mrs. Botta's. 

In 1886 I went to London again. I have since be- 
lieved that that season of 1886 was one of unusual brill- 
iancy. It was the one before the Jubilee, and perhaps 
the Queen had been reminded that she had better show 
herself and appeal to her great personal popularity. 
People feared riots, mobs, and dynamite. Mr. Glad- 
stone had been pushing things in the House. Every- 
body felt poor. The best houses all over London were 
to let. Perhaps the court made unusual efforts to 
be gay. The grand Indian Colonial Exhibition was 
crowded, and the cabinet entertained perpetually. Had 
I not seen London the next year in its unexampled 



ROYAL ASCOT 207 

brilliancy I should have remembered some Tintoretto 
pictures better than I do. 

A second visit to Ascot found us driving over to see 
the Koyal Military College at Sandhurst. The cadets 
were unmercifully severe on Mr. Gladstone, who just 
then was taking that abuse which has agreed with him 
so well. I remember that Sir Arthur Sullivan came, and 
that we laughed and talked together. While I was won- 
dering that they were allowed to lampoon Gladstone, 
and have a ludicrous figure of him on horseback, he re- 
minded me that his great rival, Disraeli, had met with 
even greater abuse in 1868 ; in fact, that he began what 
was to be his illustrious career under a cloud of scurri- 
lous criticism. " It does not hurt them," said Sir Arthur. 

My third season in London held another visit to Ascot. 
I saw Ormonde win the race over the late winner of the 
Derby — a great event. This royal race at Ascot on a 
famous day is a most splendid affair. The Prince of 
"Wales opens it in state, and the royal huntsman in green 
precedes the glittering cortege down the long course ; and 
all the royalties, in gay carriages, go in a procession for 
all the world to see. The magnificent stride of Ormonde 
reminded me of the Latin line ''' Quadrupedante jputre7n 
sonitu quatit ungula campum^'' as he shook the earth. 

All the fashion of England was there. We were on 
top of a coach, where we lunched, and the whole day 
was as brilliant as possible. The princesses were on 
the ground and were much interested. The Princess 
of Wales, remarkably beautiful and most gracious, was 
present, and our own Dr. Holmes was in the royal en- 
closure. I had the honor of dining with him later at 
Mr. Phelps's, with Sir W. Yernon Harcourt and Lady 
Harcourt, Chief-Justice Herschell and Lady Herschell, 
Lady Cottenham, Mr. Browning, Mr. Irving, Mr. Story, 



208 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

and Mr. Lowell, and others whom I have forgotten — 
certainly a red-letter day. The witty little doctor, full 
of fun, told us of his having lost his bets, and was also 
kind enough to tell us of his last visit — I think fifty years 
before — to the races. 

His reception in London was a thing to see. I went 
to the great party he gave to return his many invitations. 
Mr. Browning stood by my side and told me the names 
of the celebrities, one of whom was the Lord Mayor, 
with a beautiful diamond pendant hanging from his neck ; 
and Mr. Cavendish, who might have been Duke of Devon- 
shire. Another was Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, the 
author of John Halifax^ Gentleman^ with whom I af- 
terwards talked. I asked the doctor how he liked all 
this adoration. " Oh," said he, " I am asphyxiated with 
it." He and his daughter received, I suppose, one of 
the most thorough ovations ever paid to Americans". 

It was in this fortunate summer of 1886 that Mr. 
Phelps did me the honor to present me at court. M}^ 
presentation came on a cold Thursday in April, and I 
had to be dressed at ten in the morning in " evening 
dress — a long train, three yards wide and four long, 
white feathers and white veil, white gloves and shoes." 
Such is the order issued by the Lord Chamberlain, 

The afternoon before, I had received an invitation from 
Mrs. Wellesley to take tea with her, to meet, as she said, 
" some of her gossips." I went gladly, for I knew all 
Mrs. Wellesley's gossips were worth meeting. 

I saw a carriage at the door with the royal liveries, 
and on entering was presented to a quiet little lady, 
Princess Christian. 

She was delightful, cordial, and was very much amused 
that I dreaded the effect of my courtesy. She said, 
" Oh, it is only the charity bob, made with respectful 



MY PRESENTATION AT COURT 209 

intent "; and that is the best description I have ever heard 
of it. After giving me some good advice, such as to re- 
tain something to throw over ray shoulders, as I might 
have to wait long in the anteroom, where to leave my 
cloak, etc., she said, "I am sorry you will not see my 
mother to-morrow, as she is quite ill; the Princess of 
Wales receives for her, and I shall be there ; however, 
you will see the Queen later on." She was so gentle, 
amiable, and funny, and laughed so naturally and agree- 
ably, that I forgot that she was a princess. 

The next day, when I passed the royal group, she 
gave me a kind and familiar recognition, which did 
much to redeem the somewhat trying and cold function 
of being presented. I courtesied also to the Prince of 
Wales, who stood at the end of the group with his 
good-natured smile. 

I had remembered the instructions of the gracious 
Princess as to retaining a wrap, which was most grate- 
ful as I sat in a cold drawing-room with a few friends 
before my turn came to go through the narrow turn- 
stile. I heard my name called, I followed a long line 
of ladies, heard the page say, " Your train, madame." 
It was thrown over my arm, and I rejoined Mrs. Phelps. 
At first this train seems ridiculously like private theat- 
ricals, but when once in the grand rooms of Bucking- 
ham Palace, with a hundred others, you see that the 
dress is very stately, and that in a crowd it is becom- 
ing and fit. I was in my coupe at eleven en route for 
the palace, my big train wrapped around me for a 
cloak, and, indeed, I needed it, for it was cold and rainy. 

I spent a most agreeable hour after the presentation 
chatting with friends, one of whom assured me that it 
was worth all the trouble and fatigue, "for," said she, 
"you are now eligible to all the court functions." 



210 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

And at two o'clock, the whole dreaded ceremony 
being over, I was again in my coupe in the quadrangle 
of the palace, where the guards sat on their splendid 
horses motionless, as when I went in, all of them wet 
to the skin, for it rained heavily. The drive to Mr. 
Phelps's, in Lowndes Square, was soon accomplished, 
and a hot cup of tea was very gratefully swallowed. 

An invitation to the court ball followed this cere- 
mony, and that was worth seeing. 

Buckingham Palace is not a home — it is used prin- 
cipally for these ceremonies; therefore on the day of 
the presentation it had looked cold and dreary, but on 
the evening of the ball it was palatial, grand, and splen- 
did. The lights, the flowers, the music, the pompous 
rows of servants, and the gentlemen in waiting in full 
uniforms — all was beautiful. 

The Englishwoman is always handsome on horse- 
back and in evening dress. She wears at the court 
ball all her jewels, that necklace of diamonds, which is 
perhaps so valuable that it is entailed from father to 
son — that " Sevigne" of diamonds which falls down her 
bodice like a stream of trickling water. Every wom- 
an is in a low-necked and sleeveless dress, showing 
that neck of unrivalled fairness which betrays the 
Saxon blood. Superb, proud, handsome creatures they 
look, w4th that noted carriage of the head which we 
call aristocratic. Mrs. Phelps, with her usual marked 
kindness, had given me permission to enter with the 
diplomatic corps, which saved me much w^aiting and 
fatigue, and led me through some long, low galleries 
filled wdth interesting old pictures of George II. and 
George III. and their families. How I longed to stop 
and examine them ; but I could not. I had two young 
ladies who were spoiling for a dance ; so we deposited 



A STATE BALL AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE 211 

our wraps in a rather dim chamber and then began to 
find our way through a long, serpentine, circuitous 
route to the ballroom. The grand staircase was massed 
with flowers, principally geraniums and garden flowers, 
for even royalty does not use such flowers as we dis- 
play at our every-day dinners. 'No people boast such 
hot-house flowers as w^e reckless Americans. But on 
enterino^ the ballroom we reached a saturnalia of color. 
The diplomatic corps were grouped on the right of the 
throne, an array of superb court dresses. The every-day 
aspect of a diplomatic corps is magnificent; what, then, 
was it when enriched by the Indian, Egyptian, Austra- 
lian, African, and Chinese dresses of the magnates, 
sent by all the colonists to the Colonial Exhibition. 
There was one little man in green (I thought he looked 
like an alligator) who was all sewn with uncut dia- 
monds. I believe he was a Persian. Then there were 
the great soldiers with all their orders and medals, the 
admirals, the foreign princes and counts, and so on. 

On the left — my left, but the throne's right — were 
the duchesses, a tiara of grandeur ; then the dukes, all 
dressed, as was every man present, in court dress. 
This means, of course, white silk stockings, knee- 
breeches, low shoes, and an embroidered velvet coat, 
orders and jewels, lace at the neck and wrists, and a 
sword. The plainest dress allowed is that which Amer- 
ican citizens wear, made of black velvet. The great 
Highland chieftain, the Duke of Athole, was splendid in 
his tartan, a full, perfect Highland dress, with his skene- 
dhu stuck in his stocking, perhaps for immediate use 
upon the "Sassenach." However, the Prince of Wales 
is very fond of him, and especially of this dress, and so 
there was no blood shed. The old Duke of E'orthum- 
berland, with the blood of Harry Hotspur in his veins, 



212 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

was superb in a green velvet coat and white knee- 
breeches. But eleven o'clock came, and royalty, al- 
ways punctual, began to enter. Through the door 
near which stood the diplomatic corps they came. 

First, the lords and gentlemen in waiting ; then their 
Eoyal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales; 
then the other brothers, sisters, cousins — a royal group. 
The Queen was not present. 

I think every eye was fixed on the beautiful Princess 
as she mounted the dais and courtesied to the audience — 
to the company, I should say — who went down to the 
ground in their courtesy. I think I must describe her 
dress. It was of lilac terry velvet, trimmed with tulle 
and festooned with lilac and coral-red roses. Her orna- 
ments were a tiara of diamonds, with the orders of Vic- 
toria and Albert, the Crown of India, St. Catherine of 
Russia, St. John of Jerusalem, the Poyal Ped Cross, and 
the Danish family order. She looked so young, so beau- 
tiful, so alert, I could only think of a deer out of a for- 
est instead of a Princess on a throne. 

I took my seat on one of the red benches which rise 
in three degrees about the ballroom, and looked up at 
the clock, which was in front of the musicians, as if the 
very hours were to dance. It was a charming figure by 
Canova, this clock. 

My young ladies danced, several friends found me 
out, and it was a gay evening. A noble lord took me 
in to supper ; we waited until the royalties had entered, 
and he showed me the plate of George TV. One does 
not wish to eat when there is so much to look at. 

Coming out from supper, the royalties spoke to their 
friends, bowed right and left, and shook hands, Ameri- 
can fashion. I have seen since then many times the 
Princess Louise, who is pretty, frank, and gracious, and 



THE ADMIRABLE MANNERS OF THE PRINCE 213 

I met her and the Duchess of Connaught at Aix — both 
most agreeable young women. The Queen and the Prin- 
cess Beatrice I had seen at Aix in 1885, and, as one sees 
a prince, I had seen Albert Edward of course very often. 
I am always struck with the admirable manners of the 
whole family and their prodigious memories. How can 
they remember everybody as they do ? This royal 
family of England desires to make itself agreeable. 
Every one has a good word for the Princess of Wales, 
who is always driving with the Prince to open a bridge 
or an asylum, or on some great public function. 

As for the Prince, I saw him in the House of Lords, 
walking around, laying his hands on the shoulder of an 
old duke, chatting and being universally delightful. He 
seems to be the very pleasantest creature alive, and, 
quite independent of his great position, a man of talent 
and tact, industrious, courteous, thoughtful — a universal 
man. There is no longer that divinity which doth 
hedge a king, but there is a very great friendship for 
him, and it is visible in all ranks of life. 

It is not very far from the throne to the stage, and I 
had the pleasure to be presented to Mr. Irving by Gen- 
eral Horace Porter; this led to some very delightful 
suppers. I took the letter to the theatre with me, as I 
was going to see Faust for the first time. Mr. Anson 
Phelps Stokes and his daughters were with me, and we 
left the letter with Mr. Bram Stoker. It was at the end 
of the second act that Mr. Stoker appeared at the back 
of the box, saying that Mr. Irving would like to speak to 
me ; we went in to the little reception-room, and there 
stood Mephistopheles, cock's feather, red dress, phos- 
phorus on eyelids ; but in spite of this terrible sugges- 
tion of another state of existence Mr. Irving smiled like 
an angel ; his fine manner and high breeding shone con- 



214 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

spicuouslj. He asked me " to choose always a box for 
any evening, and hoped we would sup with him some 
night, after the play, that we might select"; then he 
went back to his diablerie. 

This was followed by a supper in the famous Beef- 
steak Club-room,* where we found an excellent enter- 
tainment. The long table was decked with flowers, 
while around the room hung pictures of the Kembles, 
Mrs. Siddons, Macready, of Ellen Terry as Portia, and 
of other thespian celebrities. There were present the 
Earl of Crawford, Mr. and Mrs. Phelps, Sir John Monck- 
ton, Lord and Lady Bury, Mr. and Mrs. Dasent, Mr. 
Toole, Mr. Scott, dramatic critic, and many others — 
twenty -four in all, I think. 

Mr. Irving w^as in full evening-dress, and although it 
was half-past twelve at night, every one seemed to be 
beginning the day, and the elaborate supper was served 
like a dinner. We saw Mr. Irviag's famous armory as 
we entered. I supped with him again and again. Once 
I remember that Lord and Lady Kandolph Churchill and 
the present Duchess of Manchester (then Lady Mande- 
ville) were present. Every one enjoyed these suppers. 
He always sent me the Prince's box, and Mr. Bram 
Stoker served us with tea and ices between the acts. 
This was going to see the play in a royal manner. 

Mr. Irving has always been a favorite in society, the 
Prince, Lady Burdett-Coutts, and Lord Eosebery hav- 
ing been conspicuously his friends. E'ow as Sir Henry 
I dare say he has even a more complete triumph over 
the old prejudice against actors. He deserves all that 
he gets, from his noble, honorable character and his 
very fine manners, so conspicuous that, as one of the 

* This renowned room is now incorporated in Mr, Irving's tenure 
of the Lyceum Theatre. 



MR. GLADSTONE AND THE CHAPEL EOYAL 215 

critics said of his Hamlet (which I have ventured to 
quote about Booth), " It is so gentlemanly that one for- 
gets the player, and thinks only of the Prince." 

It was on this visit, I think, that Lady Constance Les- 
lie, always a kind friend, took me to the Chapel Koyal, 
the Chapel of Ease of Buckingham Palace, and the little 
historical old Queen Anne church where Queen Victoria 
was married. I fear that I went there to have a nearer 
look at Mr. Gladstone, who was then having all sorts of 
epithets thrown at him by the Tories. The Irish aristoc- 
racy did not spare him. When I first went to London, 
in 1869, he was being attacked for his motion to dises- 
tablish the Irish Church. In 1884: all England was again 
in the throes of a great political change. Home Rule 
and Conservative poUcy were dealing each other most 
disfiguring blows, and Mr. Gladstone was called all sorts 
of names. Sir Henry Thring (now Lord Thring), a most 
distinguished man, told me, during a dinner at his own 
house, that he considered him "the most honest, far- 
seeing man of his day, and yet that the Queen thought 
he treated her with disrespect " (she afterwards left him 
out of her Jubilee celebrations). Lord Thring had 
drafted all the acts of Parliament for thirty years, so that 
he ought to know, if any man did, what was the secret of 
that man's power. It was the secret of genius and a 
persuasive eloquence. So I looked my fill at the great 
head which half hid itself in the collar, rising up to the 
eyebrows — that collar which Punch has made so very 
familiar to us — with profound respect for its power. 
And if people did not love him, their hatred was most 
complimentary. I was driving down through one of 
the crowded streets of London with Lady Galway, a sis- 
ter of Lord Houghton. She disagreed with her Liberal 
brother, and was herself one of the greatest Tories in 



216 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

England. She stopped to buy a paper — " Mr. Gladstone's 
Defeat, and his Speech at the Station." She read me a 
few phrases aloud. " Well done, old humbug !" said she. 

And so it went on, praise and blame, abuse and ap- 
proval, the veriest proof that an Englishman will speak 
his mind freely. I think if any American statesman had 
ever received such abuse he would have sunk into utter 
oblivion ; but Mr. Gladstone went on conquering and to 
conquer, until he asked to be relieved of cares of state 
to grow old in peace. 

So in the famous Chapel Eoyal, wont to be filled with 
kings, I listened with half an ear to the famous preach- 
er, and looked with both eye sat Mr. Gladstone, who 
was nearer than he had been in the House of Commons. 

And I gave myself up to the memories inspired by 
that famous place, with ceilings painted by Hans Hol- 
bein. There can be seen the initials of Henry YIII. 
and Anne Boleyn. There one stands outside the fa- 
mous Court of St. James's Palace, where each new sov- 
ereign is proclaimed; and one remembers that here 
Charles I. spent his last night on earth and took leave 
of his children. Here once lived Maria de' Medici, the 
mother of Henrietta Maria, the most stately and mag- 
nificent woman in Europe ; mother of one king and two 
queens, and yet who died in a garret in Cologne, taken 
care of by the painter Eubens. Here came the reckless 
court of Charles II., one of the chief ornaments of which 
was La Belle Stuart, afterwards Duchess of Richmond. 
She inspired Charles II. with one of the purest and 
strongest passions of his life ; he would have divorced 
his queen to marry her ; and she lived to become the lover 
of cats and the subject of Pope's line — 

"Die and endow a college, or a cat." 



Sm JOHN MILLAIS 217 

She is the "sweet little Barbara" of history, and her 
profile is still on the copper coins used in Great Britain. 
Much of the romance and wit of royal anecdote hangs 
around this palace of St. James. Here, when Queen 
Caroline, w^ife of the second George, asked Mr. Whiston, 
the royal chaplain, what fault the people had to find 
with her, he said, " They complain of your Majesty's 
talking in chapel" ; she promised amendment and asked, 
" What are my other faults ?" " When your Majesty 
has amended this fault I'll tell you of the next." 

I wonder if one of to-day's royal chaplains would be 
as frank with Queen Victoria? 

This immense mass of St. James's Palace is now given 
in suites of rooms to the Queen's friends, pensioners and 
old servants, the Guard's review every day, and it is to 
the visitor to London one of the most interesting spots. 

It was in 1885, just after he had been made a baronet, 
that I had the honor of knowing Sir John Millais. He 
was as handsome as one of his own pictures, a fresh, 
florid, well-featured, tall, vigorous-looking man. I car- 
ried him a letter of introduction from his sister, Mrs. 
Lester Wallack, which may account for the kindness 
with which he received me. 

Lady Millais appointed an hour for me to call, and I 
found her in her morning room with one of her " Cherry 
Kipe " daughters. She was a remarkably handsome 
matron, I thought, and very cordial. She immediately 
sent for Sir John, who took us in to his painting-room, 
sat on a table himself, in a boyish fashion, while we 
looked around the studio, and talked incessantly. 

"Will you come and lunch with us informally to- 
morrow ?" said he, " and afterwards w^e shaU give you 
a dinner. Now, whom do you wish to meet ?" 

I begged him not to trouble himself about me, that a 



218 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

sight of him and his was all that I expected, and a 
lunch with the family far more than all I deserved. 

But he insisted, and I said at length that I should like 
to meet Robert Browning. " Oh," said he, " nothing 
easier ; and Fred Leighton, and Mrs. Procter [Barry 
Cornwall's widow], and Lord Houghton, and — my dear, 
you must get the rest " (turning to his wife). 

I told Lady Millais that I was in deep mourning and 
hardly expected to go to a great London dinner-party. 

" Oh," said she, kindly, " mourning is always considered 
full-dress." 

The day for the dinner came, and I got in five minutes 
early, glad to see Lord Houghton in the parlor before 
Lady Millais came down. We had a quiet chat, and 
Browning also arriving ahead of time, Lord Houghton 
introduced him to me. Then came in quite a number of 
people, Lady Coutts Lindsay among them ; she had just 
been divorced from her husband, Sir Coutts Lindsay, of 
the " Greenery Yallery, Grosvenor Gallery " fame. 

Browning took me in, and I had Lord Houghton on 
the other side. Opposite me was Mrs. Procter, the oldest 
queen of the literary coterie in London, and a singular 
genius; and also vis-d-vis a Mr. Godwin, famous for a 
mania for buying the chairs of distinguished person- 
ages. 

Mr. Browning was a great disappointment at first. 
He looked like a retired ship-captain, was short, rather 
stout, red-faced, with a large nose and white hair, but he 
was so simple and kindly and polite that I forgave him 
for not looking the poet. Yery soon he and Mr. God- 
win got into a discussion as to the genuineness of a 
relic. Mr. Godwin said that he had just bought a chair, 
" the very one in which Mrs. Browning wrote Casa 
Guidi Windows. Mr. Browning said that was impos- 



SIR FKEDERICK LEIGHTON 219 

sible, for he had never parted with a thing which had 
been in her apartments. 

Mr. Browning was quite agitated about this. Mr. God- 
win, however, persevered, and said that the chair was 
one which Mrs. Browning had given away in her lifetime 
to certain English friends, two unmarried sisters, who 
were in Florence with her, or living near her, after the 
celebrity of the Casa Guidi Windows poems, and that 
they had asked her for it. 

Mr. Browning could not dispute this, and fortunately 
I asked a question about George Eliot, which turned 
the tables. 

Mrs. Procter declared that she " had never called on 
George Eliot ; that she would not have taken a house- 
maid with such a character." 

This brought out Browning and Lord Houghton, who 
told me many hitherto unknown stories about Thornton 
Hunt, the supposed lover of the first Mrs. Lewes; of 
Lewes himself, and of George Eliot, who seemed to 
have been most generous and self-sacrificing in giving 
up fame and name for Lewes, whom they did not think 
deserved so much goodness. 

I saw Sir Frederick Leighton often after this at his 
beautiful house in Holland Park, and he seemed to 
emulate Millais in being the prince of good fellows, as 
well as an artist of great talent. They both had their 
critics as to the greatness of their genius, but they had 
the good luck to please their immediate public. 

There was no apparent jealousy of "rival easels" 
between them. After Leighton became " Sir Frederick " 
I heard that Millais said, " Good ! he was born to a title, 
and we all know his love of purple,''^ Leighton being 
criticised for his purples. 

Sir Frederick Leighton was indeed a most aristocratic 



220 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

man, in looks, in bearing, and in manners. His accom- 
plishments were so various that he might have been 
only a carpet knight had he chosen ; but he was an in- 
dustrious artist, a hard-working, painstaking man. 

The four great men who made that dinner famous-^- 
Millais, Leighton, Lord Houghton, and Browning — are 
all dead. Mrs. Procter, whose celebrated husband wrote 
the life of Charles Lamb, is also dead ; she had herself 
known Charles Lamb, and was very indignant because 
a certain litterateur in London had asked her if he did 
not resemble that famous author. 

"As if any one who did could have asked such a 
question," said the angry old lady. 

Lord Houghton dedicated to her his Life of Keats — 
" To the wife of one poet, the mother of another, and 
friend of all poets." 

Mr. Lowell adored this old lady, and used to bend on 
one knee and kiss her hand. Her stepfather was Basil 
Montagu, so she had a real literary descent and dynasty. 

She was just as old as the century, and lived, I believe, 
to be eighty-eight. The Queen sent her a special invi- 
tation and a ticket to the Abbey on her Jubilee day. 

After this dinner she asked me to come to her every 
Sunday afternoon at four. I was apt to find a nota- 
ble gathering of literary and fashionable people in her 
rooms at " Queen Anne's Mansions." 

" Society costs," and fortunately Millais had become 
very rich. He had a beautiful house, corner of Princes 
G-ate, and he was just going oif to Scotland for the 
shooting when I first met him. Everything went well 
with him. He had an admirable temperament, I should 
say, with tremendous physique and indomitable indus- 
try. He loved fun, and was boyish in manner. One could 
imagine him at a country fair enjoying its drollery and 



A GLIMPSE OF DU MAURIER 221 

din, and could picture him with the humorous look in 
his eye, his careless necktie, his curling hair and high 
color, as the centre of a group of rustic revellers. Yet 
his business was to paint fashionable ladies, dukes 
and duchesses, pretty children, romantic lovers ; and al- 
though he was not a courtier, he could be one if he 
chose : he was a universal man. He was prodigal in 
kindness to young and struggling genius, but he was 
never extravagant for himself. His death was said to 
have been hastened by an over-indulgence in smoking. 
Doubtless, too, he hastened the fatal hour by overwork. 
His was not the nature to spare himself. 

He was one of the few infant phenomena who raised 
himself into an assured fame, and although belonging 
to that profession which is said to be helpful to the 
*' noble art of making enemies," according to "Whistler, 
yet he managed to make very few. His life was in its 
artistic excellence admirably subordinated to the virtues 
of the citizen, the husband, the father, and the friend. I 
also had the pleasure of seeing Du Maurier and his lovely 
wife at the house of Lady Constance Leslie. How little 
did I imagine that Trilby lay behind that plain face ! 

I was in London again for the Jubilee in 1887. 

" How do you spell Jubilee with five letters ?" asked 
Mr. Gladstone of Sir William Yernon Harcourt. 

"You — ^and /left out," was the ready response. 

Yes, it was the first ceremony in which the G. O. M. 
had been left out for many years. 

One of our American celebrities was amusing London, 
and I was one day startled by an invitation to meet one 
of my most " distinguished countrymen." I went, and 
was presented to Buifalo Bill ! But perhaps he deserved 
the role of lion quite as well as many who have since as- 
pired to that distinction. Certainly he carried it off well. 



CHAPTER XIII 

My Continental Note - book— The Praise of Paris— Meissonier and 
Politics— The Salon of 1886— "Varnishing Day"— Sara Bern- 
hardt's " Theodora " — Nice and Monte Carlo — La Duchesse de 
Pomar, Lady Caithness — A Sad Loss to the American Colony. 

It is unnecessary, perhaps, for me to say that I bade 
adieu to the British lion with regret. He is a very 
good lion, and as he stands above Westminster Bridge, 
looking down on his London, I could not but feel that 
he had reason to be a proud lion. My last days in Lon- 
don were full of brilliant events, not the least note- 
worthy of which was my acquaintance with Lord Salis- 
bury, Browning, Millais, Sir William Yernon Harcourt, 
and a renewal of my old friendship with Lord Houghton. 

It was a fine, clear day when I essayed the journey 
from Folkestone to Boulogne. The sea was as smooth 
as glass, and we came all too soon upon what poor Beau 
Brumraell called the " one front tooth of France which 
fastens like a fang in the flesh of the British debtor." 
Here he spent his inglorious last years, poor Beau, sigh- 
ing for the opposite shore. It is an interesting town — 
Boulogne. I wish I knew more of it than its buffet 
where I got an excellent French soup, some petits jpois^ 
and filet de hmuf, and some magnificent strawberries. 
The cookery began to mend immediately after reaching 
France. 

We got a cup of tea at Amiens, but I had to sorrow 
with my fellow-passengers whose courier had left the 



A SECOND VISIT TO PARIS 223 

bag containing all their money and letter of credit in 
the buffet at Boulogne. By the tidal train one reaches 
Paris at seven o'clock, and the long drive through the 
gay city, so unlike London, with all its inhabitants out-of- 
doors eating and drinking, and happy in the soft, bright, 
beautiful summer air, seemed to justify the opinion of 
Julius CaBsar over the old Lutetia — the old Paris — that 
this favored spot " had amusement in the air." What- 
ever wounds the Commune made, they are long since 
healed. My reflections are those of an untravelled per- 
son, as the Englishman said who visited America two 
3^ears ago and was pleased to observe that there were 
no " Eed Indians at Castle Garden, but some up-town 
with a Mr. Barnum." To get rooms which looked into 
the loviely gardens of the Tuileries was my next achieve- 
ment, and a drive in the Bois the second. 

The season was over — the Grand Prix finishes that — 
but the Bois was crowded. ]^o great ladies out but one 
Russian princess, whose footmen had blue silk stockings 
and cocked hats ; some very pretty women in white in 
their victorias, showing their feet very much, and not so 
painted as the London blondes ; indeed, the two nations 
seem to have exchanged characters. The English affect 
French naughtiness ; the French affect to remember an 
old legend, that English phlegm means "respectability." 
Many Americans drove along in low carriages in the 
most beautiful dresses. Worth cannot be hired to make 
dresses for anybody but Americans nowadays. 

Too late for the Salon, but not for Meissonier ! In 
1834 Meissonier exhibited his first work of art, " Les 
Bourgeois Hamands," which figures at the head of the 
present catalogue of one hundred and forty-six master- 
pieces ; so this exhibition is really his jubilee, and the 
proceeds he gives for the benefit of the Hospitalite de 



224 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

ISTuit, a most deserving charity. The last-named work 
on his catalogue is an unfinished historical sketch, or 
rather an allegorical one, called "Paris, 1870-1871." 
Conflagration, smoke, and trouble everywhere. Paris, 
a noble female figure in a lion's skin, is stretching a 
funeral veil over Regnault, the sculptor, who died for 
her. At her feet are the dead and dying. Frere Anselm, 
w^earing the red Geneva cross, receives the fatal bullet 
which made him drop the wounded soldier. A formi- 
dable cannon, fired by sailors, seems to vomit death. A 
mobile is hurling imprecations against the enemy. Be- 
hind the figure of Paris a woman is throwing herself 
into the arms of her husband, who has just left the ram- 
parts. She shows him the dead figure of an infant who 
has died of starvation. Altogether not a cheerful pict- 
ure, but a wonderful sketch ! It is the horrible apothe- 
osis of war. 

" Les Bravos," loaned by Sir Richard Wallace, is a 
more agreeable subject. In composition, finish, color- 
ing, light, and perfection of drawing, it is truly a 
wonderful picture. Two bravoes are standing behind a 
closed door; one of them, armed with a short Swiss 
sword, is bending down to hear what is going on be- 
hind the key -hole ; at the same time he makes signs to 
his less experienced, less bloodthirsty companion, whose 
courage, like Bob Acres's, seems oozing out at his fin- 
ger-ends. 

Then there is the famous " La Rixe," presented by 
JSTapoleon III. to Prince Albert, who admired it at the 
Exposition of 1855. This is loaned by the Queen. The 
chairs and tables, the cards (the origin of the quarrel), 
are upset on the floor. The two adversaries are glaring 
at each other ; one stands in the grasp of two friends, 
who are holding him back, while he strains every mus- 



MEISSONIER AND POLITICS 225 

cle to free himself ; the other coolly leans on the hilt of 
his sword. 

Then there is Meissonier's favorite, "1814" — Napo- 
leon retiring from Moscow. It is so small — so small — 
the whole figure, man and horse, only B.ve inches high ; 
yet in it are five centuries of greatness and a mountain- 
height of thought. 

The famous " Solferino," from the Luxembourg, and a 
small picture, not larger than a crown-piece, of " The 
Tale of the Siege of Berg-op-Zoom," are also among the 
gems. 

As I passed the little statue of Joan of Arc which 
stands at the head of the Rue de Eivoli, I was glad to 
remember that Jules Favre, a deputy and ex-professor 
of history, has written a glowing life of the Maid, 

"That fairest lily in the shield of France, 
With heart of burning gold." 

And now he proposes a national fete in her honor, and 
desires this idea to be widely known in England, being 
persuaded that he will receive much encouragement 
from that country. It is like asking the Bonaparte 
family to build a statue to the Duke of Wellington. 
However, international animosities have disappeared; 
and as Joan of Arc has become a symbol of patriotism 
and freedom of conscience, there may be a sympathy 
with this idea among patriotic Englishmen. M. Favre 
makes the Maid a human, non-supernatural, patriotic en- 
thusiast — a model for all nations. The Roman Church 
has hesitated to canonize her because she contemplated 
suicide. Poor girl! no wonder if she did. It is said 
that Bishop Cauchon acted under English influence, as 
if it were any excuse for him that he was fanatical to 

15 



226 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEKITY 

order! The republican deputies, however, voted with 
M. Favre, and the 6th of May will be the annual fete 
of Joan of Arc, now and for evermore. 

But why do I give so much time to poor dead and gone 
eToan, when the great city of Paris remains to be de- 
scribed ? The Place de la Concorde stands where it did, 
a beautiful square full of statues. That of Strasburg 
is alwa3^s in mourning. The column in the Place Yen- 
dome is built up, but, alas! the little man with the cocked 
hat has given way to a Roman figure. La Tour, St. 
Jacques, and the Chatelet still remind us of the middle 
ages. The Arc de Triomphe is as matchless as ever, 
the Luxembourg as picturesque. The Tuileries are fair 
outside, but within they show the ravening wolves. The 
Cour du Carrousel records the Hundred Days, while St. 
Germain - I'Auxerrois is a riot of mediaeval lovehness. 
Straight and grand is the Hotel des Invalides, magnifi- 
cent the Hotel de Yille. J^otre Dame bears the mighty 
monoOTam of Victor LIuo^o. St. Etienne du Mont re- 
calls the murdered archbishop. The Hotel Bristol is 
redolent of the Prince of Wales. It is a strange mixt- 
ure of past and present ; and one drives over the Seine 
as in a dream in which the letters " E. F." — Republique 
Fran9aise — seem a grim mockery. This city is the 
creation of a series of tyrants, and to keep it in this 
perfect loveliness they need a tyrant. To be sure, its 
legends are all in force. 

The cafes chantants are still gayly illuminated for 
the gayety of nations. The music of many bands 
fills the air. The Place de la Concorde burns with 
colored lamps, and a lurid glow lights up the obelisk. 
Pretty and artificial as is the Bois, it still has the fra- 
grant air of the green trees ; the locust blossoms are per- 
fumed au naturel. And yet it all looks as if the fatigued 



FRENCH POLITICS 227 

king of Yersailles and Pompadour reigned ; their faded 
roses still hang from blue chaplets around the statue of 
the Genius of Paris. 

As for politics, I hesitate to speak. The report that 
M. Ferry is not in harmony with his colleagues is quite 
true. He is immeasurably their superior. MM. Martin 
Fallieres et Ilerissen are both barristers, but lack the 
usual legal power to defend themselves. They say that 
with Fallieres the sword is more powerful than the pen ; 
that he would have stood a good chance with Clemen- 
ceau or Paul de Cassagnac on the terrain, but in the 
Chamber was ignominiously defeated by a pupil of the 
former. General Campenon drummed a lady out of her 
apartment because her piano practice annoyed him. He 
is a soldier, who cannot forget the barracks. M. Heris- 
sen does not speak good French, and his Latin offends 
Henri Eochefort. 

With M. Ferry are, however. Admiral Peyron, MM. 
Keynal et Fallieres, quite worthy of his confidence. 
They are all, however, abused as if they were members 
of Congress, and the Chamber does not seem as digni- 
fied as the House of Commons, and still less than the 
" Lords." M. Tirard is the most elegant of all Minis- 
ters of Finance, while Fallieres is the most courteous of 
men. On the other hand, Labuze and Leon Say work 
in their shirt -sleeves. They think it comme ilfaut to 
be sans gene. M. Waldeck-Eousseau is called the Due 
de Morny of the Third Eepublic, and is the perfection 
of neatness. 

M. Ferry is of a very dictatorial turn of mind, but he 
cannot prevent the bluster and the bombast of the French 
Chamber. A separation is foreboded between the 
" Union Democratique " and the " Union Eepublicaine." 
(It sounds like home !) 



228 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Altogether, however, Eepublican France looks very 
pretty. To-morrow I go to see the crown diamonds, 
which have now no wearer. I remember how they 
sparkled on the fine brow of Eugenie, and regret that 
they must blush unseen. 

Some one said the old population of Paris was made 
up of "grands seigneurs, priests, monks, nuns, parasites, 
opera dancers, hair-dressers, tailors, milliners, play-actors, 
lawyers, fiddlers, hangmen, cooks, and kings." There 
are plenty of kings out of business here, but the peo- 
ple of the blood royal are now the ouvriers — Egalite, 
Fraternite, etc., etc. 

They say that religion is out of fashion in Paris, and 
that their rulers and masters have quarrelled with the 
Deity ; that M. Ferry has concluded that the Bible is an 
old wife's story, and that if St. Paul should preach on 
the boulevards to-morrow he would be hooted down. 
However, on great church holidays and holydays the 
Catholic ceremonies still draw thousands to the Made- 
leine and Notre Dame. The pageantry of Catholicism 
is almost the only remnant of the picturesque mediaeval 
life of France. The Frenchmen love spectacle in their 
heart of hearts, and on the Fete-Dieu the outside of the 
Madeleine, the Trinite, and St. Augustin's were bright 
with red and gold and flowers. Although the priests no 
longer bear aloft the host through the streets as they 
did in the old days, they revere it all the same. 

I was in Paris again in the spring of 1885. To arrive 
in Paris before "Tarnishing Day," and when the horse- 
chestnuts are in blossom, is to achieve what ever}^ old 
European traveller desires. The spring season in Paris 
opened this year with a remarkable gayety and fulness of 
resource for the traveller, and, as the weather had been 
lovely, the spectacle in the Champs-filysees and at the 



THE SALON OF 1885 339 

Salon was all that the imagination could have desired, 
for the "Jour de Yernissage" is the day when the ac- 
tresses, the painters, the authors, and the celebrities flock 
to the Salon to see and to be seen. There was Sara 
Bernhardt, playing the role of fine lady, and playing it 
quietly and well. There were her assistants in the great 
play of Theodora — Marie Laurent, Marie Yallette, and 
Marie YaUier. There was the superb Philippe Garnier, 
whose resemblance to the young Augustus has procured 
for him the proud role of Justinian. There was Coque- 
lin aine and Got and Worms and Delaunay and Galli 
Marie and Lassalle (Hamlet) and Fides Deouis and Ca- 
poul (looking very old) ; and there were Bourguereau and 
Cabanel and Carolus Duran, and our promising young 
artists of American birth — Stewart and Sargeant and 
Eliot Gregory and Stephen Parker, who painted the por- 
trait which ornaments this volume. The toilets were su- 
perb. What an opportunity to one to whom " Yarnish- 
ing Day " was also vanishing day, and Avhose hours were 
numbered, to see the spring fashions ! Everything was 
lovely but the bonnets, which were hideous — too eccen- 
tric, too high, too unbecoming. Sara Bernhardt had a 
becoming bonnet, and the soft lace and lilacs suited her 
light hair and long, Jewish, but delicate features. One 
of the pretty actresses was dressed in bright green like 
a lettuce, with a white and yellow of the accompanying 
egg-and-salad dressing. She was unanimously called 
Mayonnaise. But to come to the pictures : It is four 
hours' good work to see the Salon. The Salle Carree, 
which is first entered, is full of immense canvases, of 
which I remember " Le Travail," by KoU — stone-cutters 
hard at work, admirably done, but not interesting ; 
Durst's "Le Eeveil," better, and our American artist 
Stewart's " Hunt Ball," wonderful and pleasing. " Le 



230 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Calme du Lori," by Charles H. Davis, is also a good pict- 
ure, and there were some fine portraits. In the rooms 
which follow I remember Plarrison's marine pictures 
with great pleasure, and also W. H. Howe's "Cattle,'' 
and Walter Gay's charming "Fileuses"; Friese's "Bri- 
gands du Desert" is a very strong picture; then there are 
the " Ketour de la Eevue" of Charles Delort, a fine cav- 
alier picture, CabaneFs "Fille de Jephte" (which I did 
not like), and certain immense canvases. Miss Gardiner's 
" Coin de Ferme" is admirable — a pleasant contrast to all 
this splash of paint. An English artist, Giles, has a good 
battle-piece. The most truly strong exponent of the 
French genius and French nationality is a picture called 
" Les Foux," by Jean Berand, which is most touching, 
most romantic, and very sad. Another thorough touch 
of Parisian work is the " A I'Orgue " of Henry Lerolle, 
which is very beautiful. There is a Dutch painter named 
Israels, who has sent a detachment of soldiers marching 
for the Indies, which is a masterly picture. Mr. Ralph 
Curtis, of Boston, has two Venetian scenes. Mr. Tem- 
pleman Coolidge has an old woman praying, very inter- 
esting and well treated. Mr. Stephen Parker has a 
" Breton Fisher Girl," Mr. Eliot Gregory a portrait, 
so that American artists are well represented, and are 
honorably conspicuous. So much for the first view 
of the Salon of 1885, with which I must confess my- 
self disappointed. There is a wilderness of common- 
place and much that is ugly and poor. It is a lament- 
able thing to say, but there seems no inspiration, no 
evolvement of the beautiful, no intricate poetic con- 
ception, no freshness. It is all " technique, technique." 
There is little independence of vision; all "treatment" 
with no apprehension of the thing to treat. There 
is no appreciation of the truth that the artist should 



PARIS AT ITS BEST 231 

control and subdue his subject ; and he should also have 
a subject to subdue and control. They are adventurous, 
these artists. They draw admirably ; they do not color 
so well, and they have few ideals. Perhaps to come fresh 
from a winter's study of Michael Angelo and Raphael 
and Domenichino and the Carracci is apt to make one 
rather difficile ; but that ideal which was once the real 
world of the artist seems to have fled, and that present 
world, " all around us lying," does not seem to have re- 
vealed itself to the artist with its truest and most tender 
grace. That privileged and exceptional entrance into 
the secrets of human emotion, possessed, let us say, by 
Washington Allston and many another cherished name, 
has not been given to the artists of this year's Salon. 
A critic of the day sums up the subject by saying that 
too many young painters of the day work for the crowd, 
and not for art. But, then, should not the painters of 
the day work for the education of the crowd? The 
same critic says that there is more warmth, more move- 
ment, and better taste shown in the selection of subjects 
this year than last. Let us hope so. 

The scene after the morning's exhibition in the Champs 
Ely sees Avas most picturesque — the gayest equipages, 
the finest horses, the most lovely toilets, and all that 
varied and peculiar crowd which gathers under the horse- 
chestnuts — all was most exciting ! A wonderful city ! 
The whole population seemed to lunch in the open air. 
The rival restaurants on the asphalt did a flourishing 
business. Hundreds of extra waiters had been hired at 
the " Ambassadeurs " and at Le Doyeu's famous restau- 
rant, and yet they could not feed the hungry multitude. 
After breakfast, as mid-day lunch is called here, was over, 
the people went back to the Salon to look at the pictures. 
As ten francs, which is an unusual sum, was charged for 



232 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

admission, the result was very handsome — some 150,000 
francs — all of which will be sent to the wounded soldiers 
in Tonquin. So much for "Varnishing Day." 

I have been to see Sara Bernhardt in Theodora^ 
which is one of the events of the season. It is a fine 
drama by Yictorien Sardou, in which we have the old 
story of the beautiful daughter of the bear-keeper, born, 
let us say, in the year 500, and destined to rise from the 
spangled slipper of the dancer to the imperial purple of 
the empress. The enigmatical character of Theodora, 
who held Justinian in her power all her life — this beau- 
tiful, clever, imperial, bad creature — was never so well 
illustrated as by Sara Bernhardt, who goes from the 
empress to the daughter of the people with a bound as 
impressive and powerful in both as was the original. 
She is a woman of remarkable reading and intelligence 
or she could never have mastered so completely this his- 
toric role. 

August Marrast says of Theodora in his Vie Byzan- 
tine au YI. Siede : " The empress joined to a superior 
mind a rare culture, an audacious and indomitable char- 
acter. She put an enormous energy into the accom- 
plishment of her purposes. She divined the intentions 
of her adversaries, while she remained impenetrable. ISTo 
one was a more.faithful friend, nor a more pitiless enemy. 
In the luxurious life which her invalid condition ren- 
dered necessary — for she could only live by a sort of in- 
terminable hot bath — she found still the time and energy 
to interest herself in all the cares of state. She rallied 
the wits, disputed with the doctors, laughed at fate, but 
compelled it, and immolated her victims with the superb 
calm with which Apollo flayed Marsyas. Justinian loved 
this vagabond Phryne with one of those overwhelming, 
absolute passions which are peculiar to laborious and con- 



SAEA BERNHARDT 233 

centrated men. Theology and the Pandects had their 
day, but his love for Theodora endured forever." 

Such are the stormy couple and their more stormy 
history which Sardou has taken for the hero and heroine 
of one of the most striking of all modern dramas. " The 
inevitable Eros" found them out, and Theodora in the 
drama is carrying on a secret intrigue Avith an old 
lover, who is at the head of a conspiracy to kill the em- 
peror. Andreas does not know that the beautiful widow 
of a silk-merchant, whom he has rescued from an earth- 
quake, is the hated and wicked empress whom he de- 
nounces. The scene is in Constantinople, where women 
are always veiled. He has never seen the face of the 
empress, nor that of his adored Myrta. Sara Bernhardt 
has here a grand and unusual opportunity for her splen- 
did dramatic talent. She first appears in a gorgeous 
salon, surrounded with Byzantine magnificence, receiv- 
ing with haughty nonchalance the homage of the world. 
After the necessary time given to public duties she bounds 
off her couch and is the dancer — the daughter of the 
people. It seems scarcely a moment before she appears 
in the most classic, simple, and perfectly artistic dress, 
ready to go veiled to the house of an old magician, who 
sells love philters. Here she finds some tigers and bears 
chained, and the daughter of the bear-keeper plays with 
them through the bars, teasing her old play-fellows. 
This is a wonderfully pretty scene. She gets her love 
philter and goes to the young Greek — her Andreas — 
whom she loves. Her love-making, her sinuosity, her 
creeping, insidious charm, recall the serpent of old Nile. 
"The honest and pure passion" of Andreas for his un- 
known Myrta makes him forget his sombre intentions, 
and Theodora forgets her greatness. All is exquisite, 
like two young lovers of the Golden Age listening to the 



234 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

nightingales, when Andreas, suddenly, after promising 
her that he will abandon conspiracies on general princi- 
ples, mentions his horror of that infamous empress — 
that wretched Theodora, the worst and lowest of wom- 
en! In his wrath he looks away from her, although 
she is lying with her head resting on his knees. She 
raises her veil for air. The audience see the face that 
he does not see ; and what a face ! Even Kachel never 
surpassed it ! It is a miracle of tragedy ! Then comes 
a superb scene between the emperor and the empress. 
The crafty, cowardly Justinian, obedient to her lightest 
caprices, is troubled by the rumors of disaffection and 
revolt. Theodora counsels patience and promises to 
save him. The part of Justinian is played by a young 
actor, Philippe Garnier, who has been trained for the 
part from his extraordinary resemblance to the old 
Homan face — that of the young Augustus of the many 
busts; it is all there, the straight brows, the perfect 
nose, the retreating mouth, that formal and strong chin. 
He is perfectly classic — modelled after the antique. 

The winter of 1884-85 found me, in l^ovember, in Nice, 
preparing to travel towards Rome over the Corniche 
road. To travel Rome ward any way was bliss ; to go 
by this exquisite Riviera, and to see Cannes, Nice, Monte 
Carlo, Mentone, San Remo, and the Maritime Alps, with 
the Mediterranean — a sapphire set in sapphire— this was 
painting the lily and adding a perfume to the violet. 
Some travellers call Nice an artificial dried butterfly. 
There is not much to see there except the frivolous of 
all nations. The climate is so highly charged with oxy- 
gen that it brings on a fidgety unsettledness. It is the 
home of the adventurers of all nations, but still it is 
beautiful, and amused me for a short time. 

I met there a rather remarkable woman whom I had 



NICE AND MONTE CAELO 235 

seen in New York, the Duchess de Pomar, Countess of 
Caithness, a great Theosophist and believer in Spirit- 
ualism, who imagined herself a reincarnation of Mary 
Queen of Scots. She was a most amiable and hospitable 
person, and took me into the room which she had fitted 
up after a room in Holyrood. She had paid a midnight 
visit to Holyrood, and thought Mary Queen of Scots 
came and kissed her. She talked very well, and had a 
great deal of learning of various sorts. Her son, the 
Due de Pomar, of Spanish descent, has literary talents 
and has written some very clever novels. I afterwards 
visited her in her beautiful house in Paris, where she 
received in a most stately fashion. She drove me to 
Cimiez and about Nice, telling me of the curious people 
who came there — kings, queens, Russians and Ameri- 
cans. At the opera she pointed out the Russian Grand 
Dukes and the various celebrities. 

The only amusement I found in Nice was to buy 
flowers to send to my friends in Paris and London, and 
I soon went on to Monte Carlo, which has a far more 
tranquil climate, and is sheltered from the winds which 
make Nice trying to the rheumatic. I had the good 
fortune to find the man-of-war Lancaster at Nice, under 
the care of Admiral Earl English, and some friends of 
mine asked for invitations for us to an entertainment 
on board. The harbor of Yillefranche, where the ship 
lay, was meant for this sort of thing, and the young- 
ladies of my party enjoyed a dance with the officers, 
while I sat looking up at those splendid mountains and 
talking to the Admiral of the various naval reminis- 
cences which that most lovely bay brought up, from 
Charles II. of Anjou, of the thirteenth century, down 
to the present moment ; and, again, to an English geol- 
ogist of the " metamorphic conglomerate " and of the 



233 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

"dolomized coral-rag," which, he informed me, filled 
the mistral with dust, a great deal of which I had in 
my eyes at that moment. 

The orange groves, the lemon groves, the endless 
flowers and palms, the cactus by the wayside — all the 
surpassing beauty of Mce and the Riviera does not 
make up for that mistral. I was glad to leave it and 
depart by the noble Corniche road for San Eemo. 

Returning another year, I pitched my moving tent at 
Monte Carlo. 

" Monte Carlo is Paradise, with a bit of t'other place 
in it," said a Scotch doctor. If there is anything so ro- 
mantic as that castle-palace-fortress of Monaco I have 
not seen it. If there is anything more delicious than 
the lovely terraces and villas of Monte Carlo I do not 
wish to see them. There is nothing beyond the semi- 
tropical vegetation, the projecting promontories into the 
Mediterranean, the all-embracing sweep of the ocean, 
the olive groves, and the enchanting climate ! One gets 
tired of the word beautiful. 

The idea that one must gamble at Monte Carlo is 
an exploded one. The music is perfect ; morning and 
evening concerts. The hotels are superb, and of all 
prices to suit all purses. I tried the Hotel Continental, 
kept by a London company, and found it perfectly sat- 
isfactory. The Prince of "Wales was enjoying the best 
hospitality of a friend, but came to that hotel to see the 
family of Lord Salisbury, who at the time was building 
at Beaulieu. And the marble terraces of this hotel were 
most bewilderingly bright. At five o'clock afternoon tea 
was served in the great hall by a wood fire (for it was not 
too warm), and there, with Punch in my hand, surround- 
ed by English comfort, with some newly arrived Ameri- 
can friends, I felt that I had reached a very good place. 



A SAD LOSS TO THE AMERICAN COLONY 237 

Monte Carlo, I found, was the home of many half-pay 
officers' widows of strict evangelical views, who could 
hire pretty villas very cheap, and who led serene and 
respectable lives cheek by jowl with others who did 
not. I should judge that it was the favorite resort 
also of spotted reputations, and in the gay atria of the 
gambling-rooms one meets every shade, from bluest blue 
reputation to rather violent yellow. As a winter home 
for a rheumatic it is without a parallel — the best — for 
beauty and pleasure incomparable, and, as we carry our 
characters with us, I do not know why any one should 
not go there. 

Although I had made many excursions with the 
duchess at Mce, and many with my kind friend Mr. 
Junius Morgan at Monte Carlo, including the fasci- 
nating drive to Turbia, one thousand feet above the 
sea, where I thought I had capped the climax with that 
splendid view embracing Monaco, Mentone, and the Med- 
iterranean, I soon found that that was surpassed by the 
further beauties of the Corniche road. This last is, I 
think, more satisfactory than any drive on the Conti- 
nent, if we except the Simplon Pass and the drive from 
Aix-les-Bains to the Grande Chartreuse. I should have 
gone back to Monte Carlo on every subsequent visit to 
Europe but that I was intensely shocked by the acci- 
dental death of Junius S. Morgan, Esq., the head of the 
great banking-house in London, and my friend of many 
years' standing. He had asked me to tea on a certain 
Wednesday, and I inquired the way to a friend's villa 
at Beaulieu, I think it was ; he told me, and mentioned 
that it was a dangerous place for horses, as the rail- 
road came out suddenly at that point. The next day 
he met his death exactly on that spot, rising in his 
carriage to return the bow of a friend who was pass- 



238 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

ing in the cars. This sudden taking out of life of so 
valuable, so excellent, and so agreeable a man threw 
a gloom over this fascinating spot — a gloom which 
made me anxious to leave it, and I have never seen it 
since. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Imperial Rome — The American Colony — W. W. Story, Bishop 
Whipple, and the Terrys — My Presentation at the Italian 
Court — A Ball at the Quirinal — Lord Houghton — Two Val- 
entines — Modern Rome — The Vatican Library and Gardens. 

KoME, first, last, and forever. When one approaches 
the Campagna a sudden feeling of familiarity, of home, 
comes over one. It is indescribable, but so pronounced 
(I have heard many travellers own up to it) that I think 
it a subject for psychical research. Whether our read- 
ing has made it familiar, and that the pictures in the 
old Penny Magazine^ that friend of my childhood, im- 
bued my memory, I cannot tell, but I felt no astonish- 
ment as that tranquil landscape unfolded itself; the 
long, Roman-nosed oxen looked like familiar friends. 
Had I been there in a previous existence ? and, if so, who 
was I ? 

We took up our quarters (we were four ladies travel- 
ling together) in the Hotel di Londra, in the Piazza 
di Spagna. It was a good house with a famous cook, 
and we found no difficulty in getting sunny rooms. 
Indeed, I should advise any new traveller to go to this 
famous square for a week at least, as he can take his 
bearings there better than in any spot in Rome. It is 
better for the old traditions, and very convenient for 
the new ones. One tastes a little of old Rome in its 
atmosphere. 

I had for friends the Story s, while Madame la Cora- 



240 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

tesse Gianotti was my cousin. Almost every street 
held for me some acquaintance. Mr. Astor was our 
minister ; Mrs. Carson, a very famous woman of South- 
ern birth, the daughter of the celebrated loyal Mr. Peti- 
grew, of Charleston, and who had lived in Rome ten 
years, practising her profession as an artist, was a most 
intimate friend. There was always somebody some- 
where to help me to begin to see Rome in the most 
useful, time-saving manner, every day, and every hour 
of every day. But my first drives were alone. I went 
out to see the profile of Rome b}^ myself. 

The Castle of St. Angelo, the Fountain of Trevi, St. 
Peter's, the Forum, the Arch of Constantine, Santa Ma- 
ria Maggiore, St. John Lateran — all were so familiar 
that I felt like saying, " You have not changed much," 
and so of the Coliseum. 

But when I drove to San Pietro in Montorio and got 
that splendid view, and then to the Borghese Yilla and 
to the Pincian Hill, I began to feel the sublime novelty 
of Rome. It grew grander, larger, more strange every 
day, as St. Peter's grows larger. I lost the sense of 
having been there before ; and when I left it, my senses 
swamped by its immensity, I felt that I had never seen 
it at all, that I should never comprehend its infinite 
beauty, grandeur. And as to its lovely drives on the 
Campagna, to the tomb of Csecilia Metella, and to Al- 
bano, they grew stranger every time ; so of the Traste- 
vere, and the San Paolo fuori le Mura: they never 
seemed natural. Those things outside of Rome never 
grew familiar, although I went to them a hundred 
times. 

And the Roman people were always. new; the Yia 
der Amina, the Babuino, the Yia Ripetta, the Piazza 
del Popolo — all these crowded streets and squares were 



IMPERIAL ROME 241 

ever a perpetual surprise and astonishment. The Corso, 
with its thousand balconies, was a surprise. I had im- 
agined it a circular avenue going round the city, instead 
of a straight street, only a mile long. 

Somehow the Capitol and the Vatican did not look 
natural, or stand in the right places. Nor did I ever get 
quite used to the Pantheon. That was to me the most 
gigantic, unequalled, and grandly mysterious thing of 
them all. I went to a splendid ceremonial there, the 
anniversary of the death of Yictor Emanuel, and with 
the lights flaring in the old torches which had been 
used for the worship of Hercules, the pomp of the mod- 
ern army of King Humbert, the clashing of cymbals, 
all the glory of a military mass, and then the singing 
of the papal choir — with all Italy, the senate, and the 
Eoman people joining in — I got so dreadfully discon- 
nected as to time that I gave up in despair for a few 
days, and went to the San Pietro in Vinculo to look at 
the " Moses," think of Michael Angelo, tranquillize my- 
self, and recover my dates. 

There is this trouble in Rome: there is too much. 
I was there nearly four months, working all the time, 
with immense advantages, but I came away with hunger 
unappeased. 

The Ghetto had not then been cleaned up. I went 
there with a certain satisfaction (in getting away), I 
went to the Tiber to catch glimpses of its then vanish- 
ing squalor, on the picturesque side near the Bridge of 
St. Angelo. I went to look at the villas, inside and 
outside, and to all the palaces where I could see a pict- 
ure or a statue renowned in song or story. I went to 
the Vatican every week, without making any impression 
upon it — there were more sculptures every time; and 
finally I went to the Quirinal to see the Queen, and I 



242 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

went into society. My social advantages were very 
great, and I found myself at Mrs. Story's almost before 
my trunks were unpacked. 

Mrs. Story was a power in Eome, and for thirty years 
made her house a charming rendezvous for her country 
people. She had the gift of exclusiveness, so that it 
was never (as the houses of hospitable entertainers on 
the Continent are apt to be) abused or made common. 
One met the best people from every country there. Mr. 
Story was so exceptionally delightful and so renowned 
as an artist that everybody wanted to see him. He 
needed a wife with just such social gifts as she had. 
His studio on certain days could be visited, but of course 
every one was taught to respect his hours of work. He 
was engaged on the recumbent " Cleopatra" when I was 
in Rome, and she lay in the clay of the Tiber, just as 
brown as she was in nature. I never saw her in marble. 

At Mrs. Story's reception I met Mrs. Hickson Field, 
who asked me to come to her beautiful house, where we 
breakfasted in an oval dining-room, looking out on the 
Coliseum ; and I met her daughter, the Princess Bran- 
caccio, and the Prince, a IS'eapolitan, who had contrib- 
uted a beautiful gallery of pictures to this charming 
house. It was the most delightful thing to go to the 
Palazzo Field, with its views and rich decorations and 
American comforts, with all of old Rome about it. I 
met foreign ambassadors, and Roman princesses, and 
English ladies of rank, and the American colony, and 
artists, and everybody I wished to see, at both houses. 

And above all delights were the dinners in "Bohe- 
mia," to which Mrs. Story asked me often, where I met 
only her own family and perhaps one friend — dinners 
where formality was exchanged for a delicious home 
life, where I met her gifted sons and daughter, her 



MRS. W. STOEY, BISHOP WHIPPLE, AND THE TERKTS 243 

beautiful daughter-in-law, Mrs. Waldo Story, and at 
"which Mr. Story was perhaps more essentially himself 
than elsewhere. Her stately son-in-law, Signor Peruzzi, 
would tell us anecdotes of Victor Emanuel, in whose 
intimate service he had passed his life. The conversation, 
which never degenerated into gossip, was most varied 
and most interesting. 

To these dinners would succeed more stately and grand 
dinners, handsome musicales, and more general recep- 
tions. Indeed, I mounted the somewhat Alpine heights 
of the Palazzo Barberini many times a week, and wished 
that they were not so very high. 

One breakfast I particularly remember. It was given 
to Bishop Whipple, of Minnesota, who had come to 
Eome with his saintly air of St. Paul — a most noble 
presence. Lord Houghton and his sister. Lady Galway, 
and some lesser people were present, and Bishop Whip- 
ple talked of his Indians and of General Grant. I re- 
member he said, " Grant is the only man who ever kept 
his promises to me about the Indians." His stories 
deeply impressed Lord Houghton, and when we were 
to separate he bent his gray head for the bishop's bless- 
ing. It was a most touching scene to see these two 
celebrated old men together, and, although I have for- 
gotten many of the other entertainments, I always re- 
member this. 

Mrs. Story took me to see the Princess Massimo on 
the day of St. Philip N'eri, when a service is held in the 
chapel of that antique palazzo. We first went up to the 
chapel through the cold stone- walls of that part of the 
palace open to the public ; then we turned aside for the 
private apartments of the Princess, whom I found most 
interesting. She was the daughter of the Duchess de 
Berri by her second marriage to Count Lalli, and half- 



244 A-N EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

sister to Henri Cinq, the Count de Chambord. She 
was a religious and dignified woman, most interesting; 
and as the Prince, her husband, was first-cousin to the 
King (their mothers having been sisters), there was a 
curious royal appanage about the children. She, through 
her mother, is related to all the Bourbons. But I be- 
lieve Prince Massimo, being a " Black," did not call on 
his royal cousin, the King, at the Quirmal. This Palace 
Massimo was the most antique thing in the way of a 
dwelling-house which I saw 

I used to visit Mr. and Mrs. Terr}^' at the Palazzo 
Altemps. Mrs. Terry, the mother of Marion Crawford 
and the sister of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, had, as Mrs. 
Crawford, in her youth, pleased my youthful fancy as 
the original of Crawford's " Flora," which used to stand 
in the winter-garden of Mrs. Haight's house in Fifth 
Avenue. I knew Crawford, the sculptor, in those days. 
He was a famous, handsome man, with an Irish temper- 
ament, most attractive ; and I happened to meet him in 
Washington when he came to adjust his famous sculpt- 
ures for the Capitol. 

Subsequent events have made Mr. and Mrs. Terry very 
dear to me. She is so perfect, so saintly a character, that 
Mrs. Carson always called her ^' Saint Teresina^^ She 
was just bringing out her youngest daughter, now Mrs. 
Winthrop Chanler, and was most hospitable. I often 
dined with them at the Palazzo Altemps, which had a 
dramatic staircase. I used to feel that if I were of suffi- 
cient importance I might be murdered on it some dark 
night. Mr. and Mrs. Crawford, just married, had come 
to be near her, or with her, and I can never forget her 
happiness in them. Mr. Terry, who had lived much of 
his life in Rome, was an amiable gentleman, who never 
showed his fatigue, if he felt it, at my innumerable ques- 



MK. W. W. ASTOE AND HIS WIFE 245 

tions. He was a great diner out, and often my neighbor. 
Added to his fame as an artist was his social talent ; so 
the Palazzo Altemps became one of my Roman homes. 

With grand parties and excellent dinners, the home 
of our minister, Mr. W. W. Astor, was a distinguished 
rallying-place for Americans. Mr. Astor, speaking all 
languages and having a great fortune, could and did live 
as the representative of our great countrjr ought to live 
in every foreign city. He was so cultivated and had lived 
so much in Rome when he was studying art (for he is 
a good sculptor) that he was also a prince of cicerones. 
He was just writmg his excellent novel of Valentino, in 
which, as one of his American critics said, "he had at- 
tempted to whitewash the Borgias, and had taken rather 
a large contract." He did it very well, however. 

His beautiful wife, so famous for her Italian eyes, 
was a great favorite with the Queen, who said that she 
outshone the Italian beauties in their own style. This 
gentle creature, so modest and humble, seemed always 
to be shrinking away from her splendid position, and to 
care for this earth and its grandeurs very little. Her 
early, unexpected death seemed to call for Cicero's la- 
ment over his daughter. 

One mounted gladl}^ the famous marble stairs of the 
celebrated Palazzo Rospigliosi, with its marble busts of 
the emperors, to see this home of the Astors. I used 
to pause on the stairs for breath, and to see how much 
the Roman emperors looked liked Americans. Mr. 
Seward was Julius Caesar over again. 

On the ground-floor of this palace is the famous " Au- 
rora " of Guido, which one looks at in a mirror, a happy 
invention to save one from craning the neck. 

I also remember many hospitalities at the house of 
Mr. and Mrs. Hayward, that Palazzo Rospoli, with its 



246 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

beautiful library, and also at the home of Mr. and Mrs. 
Hazeltine, enriched with American comforts and the 
pictures of Mr. Hazeltine, an old friend, dating back to 
the Aurehan days in New York — the days of Darley 
and "Jack" Ehninger, Theodore Winthrop, Kensett, 
Gifford, Eastman Johnson, Thomas Hicks, the days be- 
fore the war. There were many other old friends whose 
hospitalities I can never forget. I dined with Mr. and 
Mrs. Hurlbert at the Palazzo Bonaparte, in the very 
rooms of " Madame Mere," on Christmas-day, 1884. 
Mr. and Mrs. Story were present, also Signor and Si- 
gnora Peruzzi, and two English ladies of distinction. 
What a hospitable and agreeable dinner it was ! and of 
all that gay company I believe that Mrs. Lee, Mrs. 
Hurlbert, Signor and Signora Peruzzi, and myself alone 
survive. 

Mrs. Lee and her sister were very much envied in 
Rome because, being two hostesses, they had four seats 
of honor at their dinners, thus making the terrible ques- 
tion of precedence possible. This is the shadow over 
the life of a Roman hostess ; for it was impossible to 
invite certain notabilities together because each had a 
right to be considered first. 

Certain princes in Rome go back to Romulus and 
Remus, and there is even a question as to which twin 
received from their savage mother, the wolf, the greater 
quantity of that heroic nutriment which is supposed to 
have given them their superiority. 

The time came when I was to be presented to the 
Queen, and as I was in deep mourning I did not know 
how to meet the great subject of dress. I was told that 
I must not appear in black, for the Queen was super- 
stitious ; so I wrote to Paris for a court dress. It got 
snowed up on the frontier and only appeared for the 



MY PKESENTATION AT THE ITALIAN COUKT 247 

court ball, so that I had to disguise a black velvet with 
roses and old lace for the cercle. That black velvet was 
" butchered to make a Eomau holiday." 

Presentation in Rome is a far more easy and social 
function than in England. In the first place, it is held 
in the evening, when one is ready to be in full dress, and 
it is a great pleasure to go to the Quirinal to see its 
ceilings (painted by Domenichino), the splendid military 
guard, and the grand staircase, and servants in scarlet, 
which they tell me is " royal purple." I had received 
two cards, one of which I gave up to Prince Yicovara, 
the handsomest man of the period, and the other one I 
have in my pocket to-day. Prince Yicovara delivered 
me over to Madame Yillamarina, the Queen's first lady 
in waiting, who received me most cordially and asked 
me to stand with my countrywomen, who were in a 
group at the end of the grand salon. There were per- 
haps a hundred ladies and gentlemen in the room. I 
noticed near the door the two American princesses, 
Yicovara and Brancaccio. We were very proud of 
those two ladies; for beauty and chic they could not 
be surpassed. 

They were seated chatting with each other, when, 
after fifteen minutes, we saw them rise and courtesy 
deeply to a little figure that entered quietly. It was 
the Queen. 

She turned a moment towards the Marchioness Yil- 
lamarina, who whispered in her ear. Then the Queen 
commenced walking slowly around the inner circle, 
speaking to every one a few words. As she came near 
each one Madame Yillamarina read the name, from a 
paper she held in her hand, quietly in her ear. 

When she came near me I distinctly heard my own 
name and that of Count Gianotti, who had procured 



248 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

me my introduction, so I knew that her Majesty was 
being prompted. I was astonished, however, at the 
memory she showed, asking me about Mr. Marsh, our 
former minister, and American literature; inquiring 
how long I should stay in Rome, whether or not I 
found much time to write, etc., all in the most gra- 
cious manner and in excellent English. After she 
had passed on the Marchioness Yillamarina came back 
and said to me, " We shall hope to see you on Thurs- 
day evening ; and as I know you have an engagement 
this evening, her Majesty regards it as proper for all 
who wish to take their leave to do so, or at any rate to 
be seated." 

This was most thoughtful ; so, after seeing her lovely 
Majesty go the rounds of our room and pass in to an- 
other, we left for a ball which was given for .some 
charity by the princesses, where we met a most dis- 
tinguished set of Roman dignitaries. 

On Thursday came the court ball. Fortunately my 
dress was released by the snows and the custom-house, 
and I had the pleasure of attending two of those really 
delightful royal functions — a court ball at the Quirinal. 

There is something home -like and caressante about 
the Queen, even in her hours of state ; she is always a 
beautifully dressed person, and wears the most magnifi- 
cent jewels, but she still seems, in spite of her rank, 
near and dear. Her smile is infinitely charming and 
sympathetic. When she entered the ballroom leaning 
on ttie arm of the King and preceded by Count Gianotti, 
who was the prefect of the palace, and all her ladies 
and gentlemen — a truly royal cortege — we all stood up, 
and waited as she ascended a little dais under a royal 
haldaGchino. She bowed five times — first to the am- 
bassadors, then to the senate, then to the army, then to 



A BALL AT THE QUIRINAL 249 

the Koraan nobility, and finally to all of us, her guests ; 
and she did it with such grace and smiling amiability 
that she became one of us. Then Gianotti formed the 
royal quadrille, through which she walked with Baron 
Keudal, the dean of the diplomatic corps. The King 
will not dance ; he says he feels " like a fish out of water 
at a ball!" Poor King ! But he stands around, looking 
ver}^ kingly ; occasionally speaking to a lady, but gen- 
erally talking to an officer who is on duty near him. 
The most democratic, kindly, simple, but grand little 
man, with a noble head and face, and as full of courage 
as a lion. 

Royalty retired before supper, but we were taken into 
an exceedingly grand room, where we had a most in- 
viting supper. I remember eating a truffle which was 
as large as a potato and very black. I was told by the 
Marquis della Stuff a that they were from the forests 
where the King hunted the wild boar, and were rooted 
out by his dogs. The housekeeping at the Quirinal is 
excellent. One of the marks of the almost village-like 
character of Rome was shown by the fact that after 
these balls the bonbons and delicacies left over are 
sent around to the court. I remember eating, at one 
of Countess Gianotti's dinners, some wild boar which 
the King had shot, and seeing, at another house, a 
magnificent bird pie which had come from the Qui- 
rinal. 

The only house, I think, where the King and Queen 
visited was that of Baron Keudal, the German Ambas- 
sador. There were some reasons of state why they 
should do so. I was very glad to have been invited 
to this ball and to have seen the Queen, who made her- 
self delightfully genial and agreeable, speaking to many 
ladies and walking about generally. After her depart- 



250 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

ure there seemed to be an end of everything. She took 
the gayety with her. 

I went to another ball at the Quirinal, and to one at 
the English Embassy, and to one at the house of Prince 
Orsini, head of the " Blacks," the Pope's first subject ; 
dinners and teas innumerable. 

There came into my life just then the English "Hugh 
Conway," or Ferdinand J. Fargus, who wrote Called 
Back^ a novel which had such a spurt of popularity that 
it made him rich in a day. He and his wife were sin- 
gularly nice young English people, who talked much of 
their children, and I used to enjoy having them come 
to dine and spend the evening with me. I remember 
him at the great ball at the English Embassy, and he 
told me it w^as the first grand ball he had ever seen. 
They left, went to Naples, where he caught the fever ; 
however, he got better, and wrote me a long, beautiful 
letter, which I have still. Then he had a relapse and 
died. This letter was sent to me by his wife, with the 
afflicting enclosure, " He is dead ! he is dead !" 

With Mrs. Carson I used to go to the galleries, where 
she sat copying pictures, and where she told me (for 
she was an inimitable raconteur) the stories of Koman 
life. She was in a great trouble always about Miss 
Brewster, with whom she had a feud, for she had her 
own favorites, and those who were not such. She told 
me much about the fine old, witty, blind Duke of Ser- 
monota, whom at one time all Rome thought she would 
marry. That man of infinite accomplishments, of whom 
some one said it was a great good fortune to him that 
he was blind, for it gave him time to read his own mind, 
was the most famous man in Rome as a wit and an art 
critic. 

It was this witty duke who wrote the squibs which 



GALLERIES OF THE PALAZZO BOEGHESE 251 

Marforio presented to the Roman world every morning — 
that sort of secret telegraph of what everybody thought 
yet no one dared to say. They had to move Marforio's 
gossip awa}^, because it grew too severe, and told, alas ! 
too many truths about Church and State. 

The galleries of the Palazzo Borghese, with Mrs. Car- 
son and Mr. Terry as cicerones, was again an opening 
of the fountains of memory and of reading. In my 
youth no traveller ever came home from Europe, espe- 
cially from Eome, without bringing copies of its famous 
masterpieces. The splendid portrait of C^sar Borgia 
by BrouzinOjDomenichino's "Carmen Sybil," Correggio's 
" Danae," with the Cupids shaping arrows ; Titian's 
" Sacred and Profane Love," " David and Goliath," 
"Christ and the Mother of Zebedee's Children," were 
old friends ; but there was plenty else to see that had 
not come to Boston. Much remains in Eome un- 
copied. 

To study this gallery with Mrs. Carson was a liberal 
education, and then to go home with her to a dinner, in 
the Yia Quattro Fontane, and to eat dishes prepared by 
her Italian cook, the husband of Esterina, her maid, to 
whom she had once given this advice : " Go and marry 
a cook, Esterina, and be sure you marry a good cook." 
Esterina had obeyed her mistress. She gave me truly 
Eoman dishes. 

In my visits to the Vatican I had the great good fort- 
une to fall in with James Jackson Jarvis, a distinguished 
art critic, who had lived and studied art in Italy for 
twenty years. He saved me those enormously long 
walks one takes who is exploring, and took me directly 
to the gems, and to his family, who were devout Catho- 
lics, while to Monsignor Cataldi I owed the little I saw 
of the Papal Court and the ceremonials in the Sistine 



252 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Chapel. But the Pope was very busy that winter, and 
I did not have the honor of kissing his hand. 

I stayed in Kome through the " Christian year " — from 
before Christmas until after Easter — and tasted all varie- 
ties of the Eoraan climate. It was a very fine winter, 
beginning with some remarkable rains, which caused an 
overflow of the Tiber, which is, I believe, always a guar- 
antee of good weather later. People went out to Tre 
Fontane on a boat, and the Apollo Theatre was not ap- 
proachable for a week ; but as the flood subsided it be- 
came very warm and serene — charming weather for ex- 
cursions to Albano and Tivoli. 

My friends the Osgood - Fields took me from their 
beautiful apartment in the Colonna Palace into the 
splendid gallery and garden of that noted place, and I 
began to study the Roman garden. How the Banksia 
roses fell in cataracts over the wall! how select were 
those terraces, and how aristocratic those old ilex trees ! 
how proudly pompous the firs ! What a union of old 
marbles and young flowers ! Here the present coquetted 
with the past. A lion with open mouth would be au- 
daciously embraced by an undismayed honeysuckle, and 
violets would half cover the feet of a Roman senator. 

They were golden afternoons when we drove on the 
Pincian Hill to see the Queen flashing by with her scarlet 
liveries, or when we picked anemones in the Pamphili 
Doria. There was never diem perdidi to write in our 
journal. It was all success, and then came in m}^ last 
best piece of good fortune. Lord Houghton and Lady 
Gal way had come early to my hotel and added im- 
mensely to my pleasure. They had known Rome as 
boy and girl. Lady Galway told me she had gone to 
her first ball in the Barberini Palace in the old days of 
Papal magnificence, that splendor which she always re- 



A VALENTINE IROM LOED HOUGHTON 253 

gretted. I can hardly speak of these two dear friends, 
they were so kind to me. Lord Houghton took me to 
the grave of Keats, and told me to write in my journal 
that I had stood with him by those precious ashes. It 
was the 8th of March, and the grass was full of violets. 
He said, " If I had died in Egypt, as I ought to have 
done, I should have been laid here by his side, and then 
Keats would have been defended by his biographer on 
one side and the man who painted his portrait and 
soothed his dying pillow [Severn] on the other." 

To meet Lord Houghton in Mr. Story's studio while 
he was sitting for his bust was a most historical experi- 
ence. The famous poet and man of society, Kichard 
Monckton Milnes, did not lose his greatness when he be- 
came Lord Houghton. His kind heart, his genial tem- 
perament, kept him a boy to the last. His sister. Lady 
Gal way, who adored him, always called him " Dickey," 
and used to prompt us to make him read his own verses 
and even to write them. 

" 'Now, write Mrs. Sherwood a valentine, Dickey," said 
she, on February 14, 1885. 

And I added my entreaties; so that evening came 
down-stairs this pretty trifle : 

"A lettered lady of New York demands 
A poem from old Yorkshire's trembling hands; 
Herself impervious to the touch of time, 
She thinks he can repeat his early rhyme. 
He might as well endeavor to recall, 
Amid this foolish pomp of carnival, 
The ancient triumph of the Roman brave, 
The simple clown and moralizing slave ; 
Rebind the ancient bond of grace and awe, 
Virgilian metres and Justinian law. 
No ! 'mid the din forget that grand repose. 
And rest content with Italy — and prose !" 



254 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

This was not bad poetry for a man of eighty. This 
last sonnet of Lord Houghton was read at every dinner 
in Rome that spring. I told Mr. Story the day would 
be incomplete unless I also secured a valentine from him, 
and he sent me the following graceful verses. 

"A VALENTINE. 

"A rhythmic cadence all the livelong night 
Has moved within me as I sleepless lay — 
Now like a song that from some bending spray 

A glad bird carols quick, and then takes flight; 

Now to a dancing measure, gay and bright; 
Now to a serious strain, as sad and gray 
As the cold breath of morning ere the day 

Has fused the horizon with its earliest light. 

For while I dreamed I ever sang to thee, 
Whom this glad morning makes my Valentine, 

And, borne along a dim ideal sea. 
Our spirits sailed to music far and fine. 

But now the day has come, the dreaming done. 

And of those songs to thee I have not one. 

"W. W. Stoky. 
"Feh. 14, 1885." 

The recumbent statue of Cleopatra in the clay lay in 
the studio. " It must be like talking to the woman you 
love to work on that clay," said Lord Houghton. This 
interview was one of the many pleasures I owed to 
Story. But he was at his best, this variously gifted 
man, in taking me to some half-ruined temple or some 
old villa, or to the unearthing of some antique square, 
where he would point out a statue which had once been 
colored, or a mozaic floor, and dilate on the magnifi- 
cence of the old Eoman life. He would point out to 
me how a wide corridor and gallery adorned with 
marble statues had led into a spacious atrium, and we 
would try to fill it with Livia and her maidens. '' Oh," 



LOKD HOUGHTON AND LADY GALWAY 255 

said he, " how can frivolous people walk over a dead 
city, under their feet, without a stir at the heart ?" 

The Campagna was, however, his dream and his de- 
light ; next best he loved the Trastevere quarter, where 
some old Roman traits still linger. He objected to the 
absence of costume, of old shows like the cardinals' 
carriages, the dying out of the Befana at Christmas; 
he sought out the Piffarari and wrote down their songs. 
He bewailed the nineteenth century in Eome. 

I have letters from Lord Houghton dating back to 
1869, when he had entertained us at breakfast with 
many distinguished people. Indeed, so famous was he 
for these breakfasts that Lady Galway, on being asked if 
a certain murderer was to be hanged that day, answered, 
" Yes, unless he is breakfasting with Dickey !" 

It was charming to hear the brother and sister quar- 
rel over politics. Lady Galway being a great Tory. 
^'My sister's political belief is founded on profound 
ignorance," he would say. 

" Well, Dickey, what yours is founded on no man can 
tell," she responded. 

They had been in Italy in their youth, went to their 
first ball there, and both spoke Italian perfectly. To 
them I owe my sight of a princely family with whom 
they were intimate at home. It was a replica of Sara- 
scenesca. 

Some day I may publish these letters of Lord Hough- 
ton. They are worthy of Horace Walpole, and full of 
the most witty mots and anecdotes of the royal family 
back to George lY., and of the aristocracy of Great 
Britain. 

Whoever it was that allowed the nineteenth century 
to enter Eome committed an irretrievable blunder. The 
practical commonplace century makes but a poor show 



256 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

here compared with his earlier brethren. They have 
all left something wonderful to see — the Coliseum, the 
Fountain of Trevi, the Pantheon, the Forum, the Capi- 
tol, the Column of Trajan, many a nameless ruin, many 
a temple of the gods, many a palace and garden, many 
a lofty church — while the nineteenth century has noth- 
ing to offer but the Yia IS'azionale, a commonplace 
street of a fourth-rate French town. An iconoclasm 
equal to — nay, far greater than — that of Haussmann, 
this stucco street takes its broad impertinence through 
the wrecks of old palaces. Sad but inevitable law of 
change ! The modern Goth called Improvement goes 
about swinging his stick and hammers his way through 
the splendid work of ages. Time, the prince of sculp- 
tors, leaves beautiful ruins behind him, with the pathos 
of gray hairs hanging about them ; but improvement 
makes a botchy work of it — such ruin as a fool makes. 
Such noble rooms, such splendid frescoes, such pictu- 
resque balconies, go at every sweep of the architect's 
pencil ! I look upon the advent of the nineteenth century 
in Eome with the deepest disdain, and yet I fear the 
young giant is indifferent to my contempt. But there is 
one old institution that still does as his sovereign will 
suggests. ]^o emperor or king, nor even century, can 
affect the Tiber; he still is sluggish or angry as he 
pleases. We have seen him in a boiling rage. The si- 
rocco melted an avalanche up in the mountains, and sent 
the old monarch down to Rome with trees and rocks in 
his foaming embrace, and wildly did he invade even the 
Pantheon, where Victor Emanuel lies, while the monks 
muttered prayers and said masses for the repose of his 
soul. The angry water-spirits came to that service, but 
they stopped their din, as if they too had respected — 
as all Rome did — the Rt Galantuomo. Three days and 



ITALIAN PALACES AND AMERICAN CONVENIENCES 257 

nights of incessant rain were added to this avalanche, 
and the Eivetta became flooded. We were asked to go 
to the Apollo Theatre, but the street in front of it became 
impassable, so the very poor opera of Lakme was aban- 
doned. The great bridge of St. Angelo seemed to be 
almost imperilled. The lower part of the Ghetto was 
flooded and its human rats swept out. The Yia della 
Lungara was flooded, and the whole of the new Tiber 
embankment from Ponte Sisto to the Ponte Quatro 
Capi Avas under water. To one who knows Kome, 
even slightl}^, these geographical landmarks will show 
what a sudden and dangerous rise was that of the tur- 
bulent river. This was on the 13th of January, 1885. 
To-day, the 20th, the waters have subsided ; a rich Eo- 
man sunshine bathes the city, the once flooded spot ex- 
tending from near the Yicolo San Giacomo to the Pa- 
lazzo Borghese is dry, and the human rats have crept 
back to their holes. The tramontana, a cold wind from 
the mountains, has swept the streets dry. 

The discomfort of even rich Italians seems to us 
great, and we admire most those Eoman palaces into 
which has crept something of American conveniences. 
We rejoice on coming across carpets, Franklin stoves, 
furnaces, wood fires, and easy -chairs, even Boston rock- 
ing-chairs. Then we begin to appreciate the frescoes, 
the immense and splendid rooms, and the vastness of it 
all, for nothing on this earth built for the habitation of 
man was ever so vast as an old Italian palace, or so 
noble ! The rich and the poor together always look 
cold. The poor are always ragged and dirty, in verv 
picturesque clothes, and on their poor shoes lies the 
earth of the Lacustrine period. And yet what a privi- 
lege it is to be even a beggar in Kome ! I thought so 
when at St. Peter's I heard Cardinal Howard sing the 

17 



258 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

mass on St. Peter's Day. He is a splendid, great life- 
guardsman, seven feet high, I should think, with the 
proud English upper lip of his proud English race — these 
Howards to whom Pope paid a noble compliment : 

" What can ennoble fools, or sots, or cowards ? 
Alas, not all the noble blood of all the Howards !" 

Cardinal Howard is a stately prince of the Church, 
and most admired by the English ladies here, who, it is 
said, kiss the hem of his garments. He wears very 
handsome garments for them to kiss. On the occasion 
of this splendid ceremony the choir of the Sistine Chapel 
answered antiphonally the choir of the cathedral. The 
famous tenors sang their best, and so did the sopranos 
of St. John Lateran ; and no such music was ever heard 
in all the world outside of Rome. In front of me stood 
two little beggar brothers, no covering on their curly 
heads. They were enraptured with the music, as they 
well might be, and shamed my Protestant coolness by 
kneeling and crossing themselves in the right places. 
They were very much in my way, and they smelt of 
poverty and garlic; but I envied them — for they can 
always see this Rome, while I must leave it. I gave 
them a small copper tribute of respect, and of gratitude 
that they had taught me how rich a beggar might be. 
They rewarded me with a smile Raphael might have 
coveted, and a compliment in Italian, far sweeter than 
anything I have ever heard in English. 

We went the next day to hear a grand funeral mass 
in honor of the Duchess Torlonia. The church, St. 
Lorenzo in Lucino, was draped in black and gold, and 
all the Roman aristocracy were present. Several prin- 
cesses of the Bonaparte family were there, and pre- 
sented striking likenesses to that wonderful face of 



THE VATICAN LIBRARY 259 

Xapoleon I. The music was again splendid, and we 
heard the renowned tenor of the Sistine Chapel, whose 
fame is European. 

Perhaps one of the most famous days of sight-see- 
ing was that which we gave to the Vatican Library, 
which, not being often shown to strangers, may be 
worthy of a few words of description. I received espe- 
cial permission from Consignor Cataldi, and we were 
taken there by a chamberlain of the Pope, who was 
able with this important card to obtain entrance for us 
to the rooms, and access to the rarely seen manuscripts. 
It is a wonderful series of rooms, magnificently fres- 
coed, and containing the gifts of sovereigns. These 
rooms are rich in vases, tables of malachite, statues, col- 
umns of Oriental alabaster, objets d^art, everything to 
admire and to examine. Even the Sevres vase, a won- 
derful object of beaut}^ in which the poor little Prince 
Imperial of France was baptized, stands there a sad 
memorial of his vicissitudes. 

But it is for the number, rarit}^, and importance of 
its manuscripts that the Vatican Library is famous. 
Here is the largest and most precious of collections of 
important palimpsests. We saw one famous manuscript, 
deciphered by Cardinal Angelo Mai, which contains the 
De Eepitblica of Cicero, the discourse of St. Augus- 
tine upon the Psalms, and fragments of Terence of the 
fourth century; it is believed to be the most ancient 
manuscript in existence. In the same room we were 
permitted to see an autograph letter of poor Anne 
Boleyn to Henry YIIL, the book of Henry YIII. against 
Luther, the manuscript autographs of Petrarch and Tor- 
quato Tasso, with miniatures by Perugino, and so on — 
the richness is interminable. The present Pope throws 
open the vast treasures of the library (under certain re- 



260 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEKITY 

strictions) to scholars of repute who bring him accred- 
ited proofs of their sincere desire to use these privileges 
for the purposes of history. 

I stopped before an extremely rich case of illumi- 
nated manuscripts, where I found the vignettes of one 
now attributed to Kaphael, and also of another ascribed 
to Dante, written on and commented upon by Boccac- 
cio ; also the breviary of Mathias Corvinus, the last king 
of Hungary ; the famous Bible of the fourth century ; 
the sermons of the monk Jerome, with miniatures ; and 
songs and prayers in the Japanese characters. Around 
me stood the ages in this vast and noble compartment, 
this grand gallery of the Vatican Library. Here one 
may see the gift of Francis I. to Pius YII., a magnifi- 
cent writing-table filled with precious stones, the vase 
of sculptured alabaster sent by Mehemet Ali, the. great 
lamp of malachite given by Mcholas of Russia to the 
Church of St. Paul, the vases offered by Charles X. to 
Leo XIL, the marbles of Labrador, the porcelains of 
Berlin, the golden candelabra, and superb rocks of 
crystal imbedded in wrought bronze. As I turned to 
look at another garde -manuscrits I saw the Acts of 
the Apostles, written in gold, the gift of the Queen of 
Cyprus to Innocent YIIL ; the Come Egyptien / the 
Chase of the Falcon, written by the Emperor Frederick ; 
the Life of the Countess Matilda, ^ith miniatures; and 
so on, until the mind and the eye could take in no 
more. We had a little adventure as we were about 
wandering off into one of the galleries. A mass of mov- 
ing color appeared in the distance, and our friend the 
chamberlain, in affright, remarked, " The Holy Father." 
It was the Pope, in his sedan-chair, with the Swiss 
guard about him, being taken to a private door whence 
he descends to his carriage. The sedan-chair and its 



THE VATICAN LIBKARY 261 

bearers were all in bright crimson, the Swiss guard in 
j'-ellow, black, and red ; so the whole procession was a 
picture as we saw it in the long gray vista. We were 
hastily summoned to retire, and the gaudy pageant was 
shut out from our view by the ground-glass doors. We 
were permitted, however, to take a peep at the vanish- 
ing carriage which conveyed the " Prisoner of the Yati- 
can" around the noble Vatican gardens. These gar- 
dens, a park in themselves, are beautiful indeed, with 
their orange and lemon trees in full bearing, their eter- 
nal green, their avenues of box, their lakes, swans, and 
artificial fountains. The old statuary gleams amid the 
ilex trees, and the long avenues, planned by Palladio, 
and afterwards copied at Versailles, need but the beauty 
of Lucretia Borgia to make them the perfect picture of 
the luxury and the elegance of the past. They are 
lovely now, and sad. 

We w^ere permitted, after seeing the library, to enter 
the Appartement Borgia, a suite of chambers added to 
the Vatican by Pope Alexander VI., and we saw the 
window where the famous Lucretia sat and played on 
the mandolin. These rooms are filled with old statues 
and books, but are chiefly interesting for their frescoes, 
Avhich are w^orld-renowned. Most of them are by Pin- 
turicchio and his pupils. These noble works, the de- 
spair of modern artists, are the best remnants of that 
richest moment of Italian art, and, if we except the un- 
approachable works of Michael Angelo and Kaphael, 
are, perhaps, the best frescoes in the world. The sub- 
jects are Scriptural, metaphorical, historical, fanciful, 
and can only be alluded to here ; but the treatment is 
beyond anything graceful, refined, and beautiful. These 
six splendid rooms are now damp and dreary. They 
do not enjoy that priceless Eoman blessing, the morn- 



262 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

ing sun— a strange oversight for a Borgia to have made. 
They are, however, the most interesting rooms in the 
Vatican to the student of history and romance, breath- 
ing as they do the spirit of that handsome, tasteful, and 
wicked race who wreathed their cups of poison with the 
loveliest flowers, and who committed their awful crimes 
with a grand and picturesque refinement. Indeed, a 
human skeleton was found here enveloped in a delicate 
shroud of carved alabaster — a curious and emphatic al- 
legory of this set of rococo murderers who carried good 
taste even into Hades. 

From the Borgias to the Queen is an agreeable tran- 
sition. Charming as she is, driving through the grounds 
of the Yilla Borghese with her scarlet liveries, " making 
sunshine in a shady place," she is not free from insult, 
even in public, from the " Blacks." Certain princesses of 
the " Black " (or ultra-Catholic) party refuse to rise when 
she enters the theatre — even when all the audience 
stand and the national march is played. At a repre- 
sentation of Zakme, followed by a ballet, which we 
attended before the flood — that is, before the Tiber rose 
and closed the doors of the Apollo Theatre — it hap- 
pened that the ballet did not please the taste of the 
Italian audience. It was a story founded on one of 
Hoffman's fairy tales of those mechanical toys who sud- 
denly become human, and of a dancing-girl who in turn 
becomes a mechanical doll. A very admirable dancer 
named Giura was interpreting this somewhat tedious 
process as well as she could ; but the Roman audience, 
as cruel now as in the days of the gladiators, hissed, 
whistled, stamped, piped, and halloed in a most insulting 
manner. It ^vas considered also a great affront to the 
Queen thus to ignore her presence, which should have 
protected the actress from insult. 



DRIVE AEOXJND ROME 263 

We were fortunate to have driven out to San Paolo 
fuori le Mura before the Tiber rose. It is now all 
under water. It is a most desolate site on the Cam- 
pagna, and is considered unhealthy. Yet it is where 
St. Paul was buried, and the original basilica, burned 
in 1823, was famous for its beauty. The present edifice, 
which has cost $40,000,000, is uninteresting in spite of 
its magnificence. We drove thence to the Tre Fontani, 
where the springs of fresh water attest to the miracu- 
lous three leaps of St. Paul's head after it was cut off. 
Here are some wonderful old frescoes found at Ostia, 
and a fine Domenichino. The neighboring fields are 
planted with the eucalyptus tree, whose growth has 
so much improved the health of the Campagna. The 
monks distil an admirable cordial from the eucalyptus 
which is said to be a sovereign preventive of malaria, 
and we purchased a bottle, besides taking a glass of it. 
It has a bitter taste, like quinine, and is not at all un- 
pleasant. It defends the weakness of the man, w^hile 
the eucalj^ptus sucks the poison from the wounded earth. 
Yesterday, while driving down the Yia J^azionale (the 
new street decreed by the tasteless municipal govern- 
ment, to which I have already alluded, and which has 
destroyed many noble monuments, both of the Renais- 
sance and also of an earlier period), we were met by the 
tramontana, the cold successor of the sirocco. Anything 
more like a Boston east wind no one ever felt, and as 
we reached a commanding point of view in our drive we 
saw much snow on the distant mountains. We have 
not enjoyed the sight of a French or English (much less 
an American) newspaper for three days, and hear that 
both ends of the Mont Cenis Tunnel are blocked with 
snow. It is cold in Eome, but still ladies pick handful s 
of violets and anemones in the grounds of the Pamphiii 



264 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Doria, and drive, well wrapped, all the sunlighted hours 
of the day. In these strains did I write home to my 
friends, who were enjoying a beautifully mild winter in 
America. In all my European journeys I have had 
fine weather. This especial winter in Rome, 1884-5, 
was, after this little episode, a well-remembered example 
of line weather ; and even in England, land of fogs and 
rain, I have enjoyed five seasons of almost uninterrupted 
sunshine, having never seen but one London fog. 



CHAPTER XV 

The Queen's Jubilee— London in Gala Dress — The Queen's Garden 
Party — A Dash into Holland and the Low Countries — Dikes and 
Ditches — Picture-galleries and Windmills — Rotterdam and Am- 
sterdam — The Zuyder Zee and a Day at Marken — Forgotten 
Bruges and Prosperous Ghent — Antwerp and The Hague — Ostend 
the Frivolous. 

To go to Westminster Abbey to see a Queen celebrate 
her fiftieth anniversary as a sovereign was enough to 
make the London season of 1887 a memorable one to me. 

The Abbey, like all ecclesiastical structures of that 
li:ind (for it was once the Palace of Westminster), has a 
certain double sentiment pervading and controlling all 
its arrangements. Its sacerdotal and its royal character 
are inseparable. One thinks of the great stream of coro- 
nations which have flowed on unchecked from 1050 to 
1887. It is filled with a great army of dead kings. 
Royal fingers touch it everywhere, from the simple 
altar which the Confessor reared to his God to the 
florid chapel which Henry YII. built in his enthusiasm 
for himself. Queen Matilda, Edward III., Kichard II., 
Elizabeth, Henry Y., Mary (Bloody Marj^), poor, beau- 
tiful Mary of Scotland, James I., Charles II., prosaic 
Anne, George II. — they each revive a memorable age, 
and their united requiem swells the music which dies 
away under yonder groined roof. 

It is a great place to see every day. What was it not 
on the Jubilee day ! 



366 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

Eight millions of people walked London streets on 
that great day. I saw the procession from the Hotel 
Metropole, near to the spot where Charles I. lost his 
head, opposite Charing Cross Station, with a distant 
view of Christopher Wren's seven churches, the Obe- 
lisk (silent reminder of the mutability of kings), the 
Thames Embankment, and the Houses of Parliament. 
What a splendid view ! 

First the crowd, black, endless, a surging sea, and the 
soldiers forming a living wall to assist the police to 
keep back the crowd. Many a fainting woman was 
taken out of the press and borne across to the open 
space. Then the music, the march of endless soldiers 
and sailors, the gay uniforms, the splendid equipages. 

And after that the royal princesses and the royal 
children ; the Indian princes, reckless in jewels, turbans, 
and splendid robes ; the procession of princes, the Queen's 
sons ; and a glorious figure all in white, on a black horse 
— something out of Albrecht Diirer — the Crown Prince 
of Prussia, afterwards the Emperor Frederick. This was 
the prettiest, the most gallant sight of all. Then came 
the Queen in an open carriage drawn by six cream 
horses, whose manes and tails were particularly opulent. 
A sneerer said that they were false. These ponies are 
all of a breed which is raised in Hanover for the Queen's 
own use. 

Opposite the Queen sat the Princess of "Wales and the 
Empress Frederick, and by her side was a huge bouquet 
with the letter A in red flowers on a white background, 
a tribute to the late Prince Consort. She is not a beauty, 
this gracious Queen, but on that day she looked her 
royal part. She was dressed in w^hite and black lace, 
with some diamonds in her bonnet, which looked not 
unlike a crown. She bowed to right and left with a 



LONDON IN GALA DRESS 267 

swaying motion, which, I heard later on, made her very 
ill. There was an absurd rumor that dynamite bombs 
might be thrown at her from the roofs by anarchists, 
but she got through the day without an accident ; and 
in all those eight millions of sight-seers only one man 
w^as killed, and he by the kick of a horse. 

In the evening the illuminations were splendid. Ever^^- 
thing but St. Paul's was lighted up, and that showed its 
great black mass to perfection against the glare of elec- 
trical light. It was like the street of a thousand flowers 
in YaiJiek^ something supernatural. 

The reception which her Majesty gave to thirty thou- 
sand school-children in Hyde Park was the next glorious 
day for the public. These dear little, laughing, healthy 
English children, the visitors of the Future coming to 
greet the Past, were most affecting. Their songs, their 
cheers, made the tears rain down the face of the Queen. 
They were royally treated to the games, cakes, and toys 
peculiarly fitted to their youth, and the arrangements 
were made with such excellent foresight that even a 
hospital tent was provided where nurses and doctors 
stood ready with Jamaica ginger and camphor for the 
little jubilant ^vho had found cakes, pies, and oranges 
one too many for him. 

The whole scene as the Queen, in her barouche, dressed 
in a purple velvet robe and white bonnet, swept under 
that gorgeous message of welcome, " Welcome, Queen- 
mother and friend !" — embroidered on a golden flag, and 
stretched across from two Yenetian poles — was most sin- 
gularly impressive and grand. 

When that "good chap" the Prince of Wales de- 
scended from his carriage, and taking a little girl, whose 
name was Florence Dunn, presented her to the Queen, 
to receive the Jubilee cup, for " excellent scholarship," 



268 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

the shouting was tremendous. One feared that so much 
applause would make Florence Dunn a little prig for- 
ever, but she looked very modest and pretty. 

London was very handsome in its red trimmings. 
Every shade of red, from ruby to magenta, from scarlet 
to crimson, was used in the decorations. If this joyous 
pigment is sunshine incarnate, as some painters say, it 
was what the old gray city always needs, and these 
Jubilee decorations were most becoming. From that 
great edifice and memorial of English history, the Tower 
of London, to Westminster Abbey, to Buckingham Pal- 
ace, even to the Temple Church, still in its original beau- 
ty, down the busy Strand, and through Regent Street, 
the leagues of historical buildings along the Thames, the 
various palaces and towers, the houses of the great peo- 
ple — all London was beauty. The mighty ports and docks 
and bridges of that great river, as profoundly historic as 
those of the Rhine or the Tiber, fluttered with the royal 
colors. Flags flew from every coign of vantage. 

In the parks, summer kept up the scheme of decora- 
tion with roses and azaleas and rhododendrons. It was 
a worthy sight from Charing Cross to South Kensington. 

I was amazed to be invited out much on Sunday. A 
very great change has come over England in this re- 
spect since I saw it first. Even Thackeray was criti- 
cised for "allowing a man to have harmless pleasure 
when he had done his worship on Sunday," showing 
what the Sunday of his time was. The fashionable 
classes in London in the years 1884-88 gave breakfasts 
and lawn -tennis parties of a Sunday afternoon, and 
drives to the country were fashionable ; there were also 
very many dinners in town, Sunday parades in Hyde 
Park,coach drives of clubs : the drags assembled at Hamp- 
ton Court, Richmond, etc. I heard that there were con- 



A queen's garden party 269 

certs and theatrical performances ; I never went to any 
of them, so I cannot say, but I quote a writer of the 
day : '^ In the days of George III. and Queen Charlotte, 
when every one went to church to be bullied and thumped 
into heaven by threats and fears, Sunday parties were 
much more in vogue, not only in private houses, but in 
public rooms. Kow that we are not driven into heaven, 
l3ut allowed to find it our own way, our merriment of 
Sunday is less outrageous." 

But all this is " society's " Sunday. The majority of 
Londoners of the middle class still keep to their chapels, 
churches, gardens, and homes ; it is a beautifully quiet 
and respectable day in the London suburbs. It is true 
that people seek the fresh air, couples go out on their 
bicycles, immense numbers of pedestrians are turning 
out towards the parks, and there is a great deal of move- 
ment, but it is decorous and becoming. It is one of 
the distinctions of New York that it is also a Sunday- 
keeping city. We of the small contingent of the Anglo- 
Saxon race are the only people who observe the Lord's 
day in this fashion. 

I had been to a state concert and to a state ball, and 
I supposed my chances of seeing Buckingham Palace 
again were very small, when I received an unexpected 
invitation to the garden party in the park behind 
Buckingham Palace, opened by the Queen for the first 
time in eighteen years. Curiously enough, I had been 
in London on that first occasion, and had looked through 
my opera-glass from the windows of Buckingham Pal- 
ace Hotel down into its g^j crowds ; but then I had not 
been presented, so was not eligible to an invitation. 

It was a beautiful scene, and I think the glance down 
that stately staircase, at the foot of which stood a 
group of the Indian princes who had come over for the 



270 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Jubilee, was one of the handsomest things I had ever 
seen. 

Why should it not be. And then the back of the 
palace (never seen by Londoners except on such an oc- 
casion) is so beautiful ; the magnificent trees, the velvet 
turf, the ornamental little lakes — each with a boatful of 
well-dressed people sailing up and down — the whole 
lawn dotted with fashionably attired people, and every- 
where scarlet coats and uniforms and orders ! 

Presently a gentleman said to me, " Come this way." 
I did so, and found we were making a live alleyway for 
the Queen to walk down. She arrived at one of the 
great gates in royal state — four horses to her carriage, 
the Scotch servants behind, and a group of outriders — 
and was received by all her children, who walked with 
her through this living lane. They were all chatting 
and laughing, and bowing right and left as they fol- 
lowed the royal pipers, who always precede the Queen. 

She stopped, as she came near me, to speak to and 
kiss the Maharajah Kueh Behar, who is a pretty little 
Indian princess, as brown as a berry, dressed in her na- 
tive costume. She and her husband are very indepen- 
dent, advanced Indians who have been educated in 
England. 

I noticed, as she spoke to this little Isidy, how very 
pretty is the Queen's smile. She has little teeth, not 
set close together, but very white, and this smile makes 
her face almost handsome. 

The prince walked with her, his handsome wife hav- 
ing preceded him. The royalties, having promenaded 
around the ground, then separated and helped to enter- 
tain the company. We w^ere asked to enter the tents, 
under which refreshments were offered, and I remember 
that somebody who seemed to be host or hostess came 



THE QTJEEN LAYS A CORNER-STONE 271 

and talked to me when I had temporarily lost my 
party. 1 think there must have been five thousand 
people present. 

Standing by a window, but not allowed to speak, was 
the Crown Prince Frederick, already entering upon those 
weary days of agony that were to end his noble life. 

This party caused much jealousy among the Ameri- 
cans, as Mr. Phelps had the right to but few entrances, 
and five hundred wanted to see it ; and naturallj^, for it 
was the climax of the Jubilee entertainments. 

Here come in the hardships of a minister's life. ^N'ow 
that we send ambassadors, I hope that they either will 
have more cards for these court festivities or that they 
will not be so accessible. Mr. and Mrs. Phelps were 
immensely popular, full of tact, and as kind as they 
could be, but they were very discriminating and per- 
fectly firm ; indeed, they could not yield. But imagine 
a man with only forty invitations to give out and all 
the United States desiring them ! 

The last that I shall describe of the public festivities 
was a drive to Windsor Castle and in the Park, to see 
the Queen lay the corner-stone of the statue to Prince 
Albert — the Woman's Jubilee offering to her Majesty. 

My friend the Hon. Mrs Wellesley invited me down 
to her cottage at Hough, near Windsor, to pass a day 
or two, and we drove to the castle, where Mrs. Welles- 
ley had lived twenty-seven years as one of the Queen's 
household, the wife of Dean Wellesley, the Queen's 
confidential friend. I saw that inner quadrangle and 
the houses of the present dean, also the chapel erected 
to the Prince Consort, and the beautiful cenotaph of the 
Prince Imperial of France, that poor boy who fell in 
Zululand. He lies in the chapel of the Edsalls, and is 
sculptured as he fell, in the undress uniform of his corps. 



272 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

It is a touching statue, and his last letter to the Queen 
is carved on the base. 

Windsor Castle, which covers fifty acres of ground, 
is the most superb and interesting royal house in the 
world to me ; and to see it thus intimately, and to catch 
a glimpse of that life which surrounds the sovereign, 
w^as most interesting and unusual. It is a village in 
stone, and I believe contains, with all its appanage, four 
thousand people. After taking tea with the wife of the 
present dean we drove to South Park to see the corner- 
stone laid for the statue to the Prince Consort. We 
found many people there, and saw Mrs. Gladstone 
courtesying to Prince Christian, and all the ladies of 
the committee standing around the beginning of the 
work ; also an old woman who had walked from Scot- 
land to see the Jubilee. Then came the royal cor- 
tege. The Queen, with four horses and postilions, es- 
corted by the Guards, entered with a sweep; and a 
dozen or so ladies and gentlemen following in carriages 
and on horseback made a pretty sight. The princes and 
the Crown Prince of Germany, Marquis of Lome, and 
Prince Henry of Battenberg all wore the Windsor liv- 
ery, w^hich I thought not pretty. 

The Queen alighted from her carriage and, followed 
by her daughters, walked about to speak to people. She 
shook hands with the Baroness Burdett - Coutts and 
w4th many others. She greeted many people cordially, 
then crossed over to the old woman who had walked 
from Scotland and greeted her so cordially that the old 
woman began to talk. Then she (the Queen) curled her 
royal lip and walked on. 

The ceremony of laying the corner-stone was very 
short, and then the Dean of Westminster asked the 
school-children present (some six hundred) to sing '^ Old 



A DASH INTO HOLLAND AND THE LOW COUNTRIES 373 

Hundred " and " God save the Queen." He said there 
was nothing so dear to the Queen as the voices of her 
subjects. 

Half of them sang Old Hundred and the other half 
" God save the Queen," and the effect was not musical. 
I fear the Queen did not on that occasion like the voices 
of her subjects. 

It was on my return from the Queen's garden party, 
I think, that I received a delightful and unexpected in- 
vitation to accompany some friends to Holland. 

There are some days which are the seed-pods of des- 
tiny. We look back on them as landmarks. I regard 
this day as one of my best seed-pods. I fell in with 
friends who Avere the perfection of kindness and devo- 
tion. They loved art, and were indeed the most satisfac- 
tory of connoisseurs. Together we spent three delightful 
weeks in Belgium and Holland, a journey which, made 
as we made it — from Dover to Calais on one of the 
splendid new steamers, and thence to Brussels — is as 
easy as going from New York to Newport, and one 
from which the most delicate invalid need not shrink. 
The only hot and dusty ride we had in a summer un- 
precedented for heat and drought was on the 14:th of 
August, from Brussels to Paris. But that was only the 
end of a charming trip. Let me advise every one to 
take this trip who has not already enjoyed the Low 
Countries. At Brussels one sees the Flemish school in 
all its native beauty and charm : Yan Eyck and Bueghel, 
Yan der Weiden, Philip de Champagne, Bacheerele and 
De Heem, all engaged our attention. In the Musee 
Moderne is a fine collection of modern Belgian art. An 
exquisite old bit is Notre Dame de Chapelle, founded in 
1134, with a most elegant choir and nave, and of course 
the glorious town-haU. And how exquisite the drives 



274 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

through the Bois de la Cambre leading to the Forest of 
Soignies, whence one pierces the dark recesses of the 
forest, or winds down in grassy slopes to glades in the 
miniature vallej^s below, and surprises the wood-n3^mphs 
at the fountain. 

The only trouble about Brussels was that we were 
thinking of Antwerp and Amsterdam and Ghent and 
Bruges, and we hardly gave the beautiful Belgian Paris 
as much attention as it deserved. However, we kept 
coming back to it, and found it always delightful; a 
comfortable, pretty, and healthy city of four hundred 
thousand inhabitants — under Leopold, most cultivated of 
kings — and certainly not a bad place to live in. 

However, our dash into Holland, after the furor and 
fever heat of the Jubilee, was like taking a swim at Long 
Beach after the heat of a day in New York. It looked 
so green and so cool, and was so still and calm. Some 
wit said that after this life was ended he hoped he 
should come into existence again as a cow, for he 
thought cows were always taken care of and always 
in pleasant places. Certainly if I must be a cow when 
I appear again on this earth, after the Pythagorean 
theory, I hope I shall be a Holland cow, for of all ani- 
mals it is the most to be envied. Holland is a land 
of intense paradox. It is quite impossible, but it is 
there. It is a house built in the sand, which stands for 
ages ; it is tied together with wisps of straw, for, as every- 
body knows, artificial dikes of earth and reeds protect 
the spots where the sea is higher than the land. In no 
other country do the keels of the ships float above the 
chimneys, and nowhere else does the frog croaking from 
among the bulrushes look down upon the swallow on 
the house-tops. Where rivers take their course it is 
not through beds of their own choosing ; they are com- 



THE WINDMILLS OF HOLLAND 275 

pelled to pass through canals, and are confined within 
fixed bounds by the stupendous mounds built by man. 
Here and nowhere else does the impetuous ocean obey 
the imperious command, " Thus far shalt thou go, and 
no farther." 

The first thing we noticed were the windmills, most 
picturesque of objects. They seem to fill in one's long- 
ing for mountains, for something to look up to. These 
stolid Dutchmen have made the wind their slave, and 
not a breath of air passes over Holland without pajang 
toll. These beautiful but peaceful giants, with whom 
Don Quixote fought, stand in crowds about the great 
cities, swinging their great impersonal arms, as if bid- 
ding defiance to the enemy. They weigh the cheeses, 
saw the timber, and drain the land. The wind coun- 
teracts the water, as both fought for the defence of 
Leyden. There are nine thousand windmills in Holland, 
and their annual service to the people is valued at eight 
millions of dollars. 

These airy ministers redeem the landscape from in- 
sipidity, for it is to be feared the Dutchman loves 
straight lines, and there is a formal and methodical di- 
rectness to his taste. Water, however, is a freakish imp, 
and cannot be commonplace ; with its lights and shad- 
ows, its perpetual ripple, even a canal is beautiful. As 
we approached the larger bodies of water, like the Zuy- 
der Zee, we were brimful of admiration for the opaline 
tints of sea and sky. It must be this which has made 
the Dutch such colorists, for their great painters rarely 
left Holland for their subjects. 

I shall never forget the entrancing view of Rotter- 
dam as we looked down on it from a railroad bridge. 
It seemed as if it were a bit of stage scenery. Hood 
calls it 



276 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

"A sort of vulgar Venice, 
Improve it if you can." 

To me it was almost as beautiful as Venice, for the 
architecture, the canals, the trees, the vast crowd of 
masts, made it a poem. Had I not seen Amsterdam 
later on, I should have alwa3^s thought Eotterdam 
peerless. We afterwards spent a day there, and were 
somewhat disillusioned, but we were delighted with the 
first picture. I cannot get over it. I must repeat my- 
self : Eotterdam is beautiful. 

But Amsterdam, with the river Amstel helping to 
give a lively current to its canals, with its patchwork 
of water streets, its long double rows of trees which 
seem endless, its palaces, its magnificent houses with 
machicolated roofs, and, above all, the quaint craft, the 
old Dutch galleons, with their shadowy sails, their fine 
brown color, their queer round outlines, their unending 
picturesqueness, is a paradise for the painter. It is one 
of the most beautiful cities in the world, and I do not 
wonder that the artists have gone mad over it. Imag- 
ine having in front of your door a row of trees, then a 
broad beautiful river, then on the other side another 
row of tall elms, and on the bosom of the river the most 
quaint and most impressive of Dutch galleons, of that 
dark-brown color like old mahogany, for which Dutch 
ships and Dutch sails seem to have taken out a patent. 
Yes, a dozen of them, with families living on the ship. 
Even the family washing, which the boatman's wife 
hangs out, with an occasional red shirt, helps the picture. 
It is a dream of color and tender tones. 

We spent several days at Amsterdam in order to see 
the unrivalled galleries, and to go to the Island of 
Marken, which is the very heart of Holland. We char. 



THE ZUYDER ZEE AND A DAY AT MAKKEN 277 

tered a little steam-tug, put a luncheon on board, and 
steamed out into the Zuyder Zee. I can scarcely tell 
you how lovely the day was, and what a vision of the 
Flying Dutchman we had in the shadowy sails made 
on the herring craft, by their custom of hanging the 
nets up to the masts to dry. This was indeed a gobe- 
lin tapestry. When we arrived, after two hours, at 
Marken we found their herring fleet at anchor, each 
with a little pennant at the mast-head, delightfully 
pretty. 

The Island of Marken is one of the great curiosities 
of Holland. Its fisherfolk have a picturesque costume 
which they have never changed. Probably a Marken 
man looks as he did when Charles Y. visited the island. 
The women wear a cap with strange gold jewelry, and 
a blue petticoat, full plaited, with a bright jacket, full 
sleeves, and a kerchief neatly pinned. Even the little 
children wear this costume. The men wear knicker- 
bockers, and have the loose shirt-collar fastened with 
most ornate buttons. We tried to bu}'' a pair of these 
buttons, which are of solid gold and fine workmanship, 
but they would not sell them. They were making their 
hay as we visited them, and it was a pretty sight to 
see girls pushing the flat boats around with poles, from 
the sand-dunes and islets, which composed the group 
called Marken, to the one central point where the hay 
was piled. They have no fresh water on this island, 
but bring it daily from Amsterdam, as they do their 
bread. We saw them unlading the two necessaries of 
life from the Amsterdam boat and carrying them off in 
boats to their cottages. A life so amphibious would 
seem monotonous to us, but they love it as the Swiss 
does his mountains. No Marken mm or maid will 
raarrv out of the town. The race is an aristocratic one. 



278 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

The islanders are as healthy as possible, and one school- 
master and one church supply them with two of the 
great necessities of this and the next world. 

But Marken is sufficient unto itself. One young boy 
of nineteen, the only person on the island Avho could 
speak English, acted as our guide. He said he had been 
to California. This seemed to bring him near to us, and 
we found that the young Dutch sailor had clearly appre- 
hended America as the golden land where fortunes 
were to be made; but his father had been drowned, and 
he was obliged to come back to take care of his wid- 
owed mother. From him we got many details of this 
strange sequestered spot, this queer human existence 
where one is satisfied with what one has, which is 
surely unique in our feverish nineteenth century. Our 
sail home through the delicious, invigorating salt sea 
air, our gliding into the canal, our excellent lunch on 
board, were highly appreciated. The vision of true 
Dutch life on the shores of the canal, the little visit to 
Broek, where the people are so offensively clean, made 
this a day to be marked with a white stone. 

As for Dutch cleanliness^ I must say it stops short of 
the person and the olfactories. Dutch bedrooms are 
not as we should say "aired"; "stuffy" is the word 
which I should use. The Marken peasants sleep in a 
sort of bunk, as they would on board ship. Indeed, 
their maritime habits have made them careless of what 
we consider a necessity of life, a good bed. In fact, I 
may say that I think the Americans are the only peo- 
ple who have good beds. I consider the American 
bedroom unparalleled for freshness, comfort, and clean- 
liness. It is worth going all over Europe in order to 
come home to one's own bed. 

It was impossible not to be thrilled as we darted 



AMERICAN APPRECIATION OF THE DUTCH 279 

over these placid waters with the recollection of the 
magnificent display of courage which their very vol- 
ume has inspired. The arms of Zealand are a lion 
swimming, with the motto " I strive and keep my head 
above water." Imagine living in a country where, on 
the safe side of a dike, one hears the waves roaring 
ten or twelve feet above one's head. Etna or Vesuvius, 
the earthquake or the avalanche, is a safer neighbor. 
All Holland is hourly threatened with submersion. 
Watchmen are posted day and night to watch the line 
of threatened attack. The rise and fall of the tide 
are measured with perpetual anxiety. Chicago with 
the anarchists abroad was not more filled with danger 
than is Holland all the time. If the dike is suspected 
and a breach be apprehended a bulwark is built of 
rushes and earth with incredible rapidity. The whole 
of the Zuyder Zee was dry land in the thirteenth cen- 
tury. It is now water which has been pushed out to 
make room for land. 

How proud we Americans should be of the admira- 
ble books Americans have written of the Dutch ! Bet- 
ter than all comes up the memory of Motley's Rise of 
the Dutch RepuhliG and the History of the United 
Netherlands. We see again old Van Tromp, with his 
broom at the mast-head; we see Admiral de Euyter, 
brave old sailor, keeping the French at bay until his in- 
domitable Dutchmen on shore have opened the sluice- 
ways and flooded the polders. Anything but foreign 
tyranny ! The Dutch cannot stand that. 

The high cultivation of the fields and gardens, the 
beauty of the flowers and trees, the greenness of the 
grass, the compensation for flatness in the perfection of 
finish, struck us forcibly as we looked at the country 
about Amsterdam. 



280 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

As for the old city itself, with its houses leaning for- 
ward at an angle which sometimes looked dangerous, 
with their old fa9ades, carved in 1560, perhaps ; with 
the iron crane and chain starting forward from the 
roof — how we wished New Amsterdam had preserved 
some of these quaint houses ! Their insecurity of foun- 
dation does not seem to impair their solidity and safety. 
Within them what choice pictures we saw, what gleams 
of comfort and of a sober luxury ! 

The great gallery of pictures at Amsterdam is one 
of the sights of Europe, and is, I think, better arranged 
than almost any other gallery. Nothing can be more 
tiresome than to hear one describe pictures, but it is 
certainly a surprise to even the best-educated art stu- 
dent to see Eembrandt, Teniers, Jan Steen, Ostade, 
Gerard Dow, Maeris, Metzu, Paul Potter, Woiivermans, 
Yandervelde, and Cuyp on their own ground. There is 
a poetical imagination, a skilful management of light 
and shade, and an absolute perfection in their art of 
drawing which are beyond all praise. Their clearness 
and brilliancy of coloring and their portraits must be 
seen to be understood. Paintings of the highest ex- 
cellence are in groups all over Holland. We studied 
them deeply and constantly, and left them, in despair 
at not being able to see the half. 

All this great city — its houses, canals, and sluices — is 
founded on piles. As Erasmus used to say, " He had 
reached a city where the inhabitants lived like crows on 
the tops of trees." To keep the canals clean costs the 
city several thousand guilders daily. H it were not for 
the most skilful management Amsterdam Avould be sub- 
merged at any moment. It is one of the most wonder- 
ful and curious sights in all Europe. These water streets, 
with their picturesque craft reflecting the enormous and 



AMSTERDAM AND HOLLAND 281 

beautiful trees on the bank, the splendor of the build- 
ings, the air of comfort and of wealth, the Khine ves- 
sels and Dutch coasters along the booms in front of 
the town, the ships of all nations in the Zuyder Zee, and 
a sort of general queerness and unlikeness to anything 
else, make Amsterdam eminently interesting. As I 
have said, half the houses tip forward at a most dan- 
gerous-looking angle, and we were told that in 1822 the 
enormous corn warehouses of the Dutch East India 
Company actually sank down into the mud ; and not un- 
naturally, as they are said to contain seventy thousand 
bushels of corn ! But we slept soundly, nor did we fear 
submergence. The water all looks clean and clear, and 
the beauty of these water streets is perfectly delicious. 
At a fine new hotel, called the Amstel, lives the fa- 
mous Dr. Metzgar, the man who has cured the Empress 
Eugenie of her rheumatism. 

The drives about Amsterdam are of course very lim- 
ited, but we were never tired of going about the grand 
and lovely city and shopping at its quaint shops. 

From here we went to Haarlem, its near neighbor, 
the delight of the rich Amsterdam merchant, and where 
the tulip is raised and sent as an article of commerce all 
over the world. 

The paintings of Franz Hals are seen in Haarlem as 
nowhere else. One goes to Haarlem to hear the organ, 
see the tulips, and view the works of Franz Hals. This 
great painter is especially known for his portraits of 
Dutch burgomasters, but he has the exquisite finish of 
Meissonier in his small work. One wants to talk about 
the splendid defence of Haarlem against the Spaniards, 
but it is necessary to forbear. 

The approach to Haarlem from Amsterdam is over 
causeways formed in fascines, held together with stakes 



382 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

and wisps of straw. It is a prolonged Brooklyn Bridge 
built entirely in the sea. Tiie churches in Holland are 
not especially beautiful. The civic architecture in the 
Low Countries is the beautiful thing. For public spirit 
and for charities Amsterdam is notable. 

We visited Bruges and Ghent on our way back to 
Belgium, and enjoyed the paintings of Memling at 
Bruges. Nothing more quaint and pretty than Bruges 
can be seen. It is a dead town to-day, but oh ! what 
spoils of the past ! Once it was the Liverpool of the 
Middle Ages, rich and powerful when Antwerp and 
Ghent were nothing. Now the passing traveller finds 
a fair city worthy of its ancient fame. " The season of 
her splendor is gone by." The traveller must read 
Longfellow's poem and Motley's prose to appreciate 
Bruges. 

But he goes to see the belfry of Bruges, the Cathedral, 
and Notre Dame, where are the wonderful tombs of 
Mary of Burgundy and of Charles the Bold. In the 
Hospital of St. John is the reliquary, or cJidsse, of St. 
Ursula, ornamented with Memling's wonderful paint- 
ings. 

Ghent is another most interesting old town, and this 
favorite city of Charles Y. is still prosperous. One can- 
not but remember the Battle of the Golden Spurs, be- 
tween the burghers and the flower of the French chiv- 
alry, at Courtrai. It is a town full of memories. From 
1297 to the end of the eighteenth century the men of 
Ghent were good fighters. There is a wonderful bel- 
fry tower here, monument of their wealth and power. 
The bells are all named. One is Eylandt, which bore 
the inscription, ^' I ring for birth, death, and marriage, 
to warn of flood and fire, and to call the citizen to 
defend his fatherland." Indeed, what a poetic story 



GHENT AND ITS MEMORIES 233 

might be made out of the bells of Ghent alone ! Above 
all these towers in Ghent hangs the fine old bell Caro- 
las, named from Charles Y. It requires sixteen men to 
ring it, and is one of a set of chimes deliciously reso- 
nant and musical. They were more poetical than we, 
these old burghers ; they had more time to be, although 
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Ghent did a 
great deal of fighting. They could summon eighty thou- 
sand fighting - men in 1400, and the vast streams of 
population were so tumultuous that the people of the 
town kept their children in at meal-times for fear that 
they would be trodden down by the passing multitude, 
^ow the bells ring at these same hours ; but, alas ! only 
a few nuns, a few beggars, a few old women, passed me 
as I sat looking up at the noble carved work of the 
Cathedral of St. Bavon. Its rich decorations, the ob- 
jects which it contains, are a study for a lifetime. Here 
are ten masterpieces of the brothers Yan Ej^ck. The 
beauty and grace of the " Yirgin Mother" surpass even 
Eaphael's pictures. Here, too, lie buried the painters 
Hubert Yan Eyck and his sister Margaret — the great 
woman painter who loved her profession so well that 
she refused all offers of marriage, that she might de- 
vote herself to art. 

In Ghent was born Charles Y., and to the splendid 
inheritance of his grandmother, Mary of Burgundy, did 
he owe his immense empire. We saw her tomb at 
Bruges, a magnificent mausoleum in brass. There she 
lies, pretty little thing. She died at twentj^-seven, and 
she lies with her little hands crossed in prayer, the 
golden link from Charles the Bold to the greater 
Charles Y., and the wife of Maximilian. This illustrious 
heiress brouo:ht to the house of Austria a string: of 
duchies, counties, and lordships quite incredible. ISToth- 



284 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

ing is left of her but the exquisite detail of her short, 
unselfish life and this noble tomb. She died of an acci- 
dental fall from her horse while out hunting with Maxi- 
milian, from whose loving eyes she concealed her hurt 
until death took her from him. 

I think about twenty years' constant study and re- 
flection might well be given to Ghent and Bruges. I 
wish all the foolish days of my life which I have spent 
at American watering-places thinking I was amused at 
five changes of dress a day, dinner-parties with the 
thermometer at 90°, etc., could have been given to Ghent 
and Bruges. What relics of a grand and poetical and 
useful race ! What visions of history ! What gems of 
art and architecture! Why, just one look at the Hotel 
de Yille in Ghent, with its facade of richest flamboy- 
ant Gothic and one of its sides in the Italian Renais- 
sance, is worth two balls at Delmonico's. 

But I must remember that every one does not love 
old European towns as well as I do ; also, I must remem- 
ber that I once liked to dance as well as anybody. But 
when one is tired of dancing let him go to Ghent and 
think of Charles Y. and the Duke of Alva. 

The Grand Beguinage is a feature of Ghent. One 
sees the portraits of these noble nuns by Memling and 
Franz Hals everywhere; they are also the subject of 
many modern French pictures. Forty-three hundred sis- 
ters, most of them noblewomen and women of wealth, in 
black robes and white veils, have their nunneries all over 
Belgium. There are six hundred nuns in Ghent, and one 
can see them all in church every day. They attend to 
the sick in hospital and at the Beguinage, visit and re- 
lieve the poor, and make lace. Almost all of them are 
rich enough to keep a servant. They are bound by no vow, 
but few leave this rather easy-going monastic seclusion. 



ANTWERP NOT FORGOTTEN 285 

This was the place which the noble James van Arte- 
velde made famous, and here the turbulent citizens were 
once compelled to kneel before Charles, and, with hal- 
ters round their necks, demand pardon on their knees. 
This rope in years after became a silken cord, with a 
true-lover's knot in front. A nobleman of Ghent would 
not dream of appearing without his halter ; and so, like 
the order of the Garter, an ignoble object became an 
order of nobility. 

I don't know why I have skipped Antwerp, where 
we went immediately after Brussels. Antwerp is the 
chief military defence of Belgium. Antwerp was the 
home of Rubens, and Yandyke and Teniers, Jordaens 
and Quentin Matsys. The Cathedral of Notre Dame, 
with its spire of Mechlin lace, is so noble ! How could 
I have forgotten Antwerp? Not alone for those great 
masterpieces of Rubens, before which one stands with 
folded hands, breathless with adoration ; not alone for 
that less well-known but most interesting composition, 
" The Elevation of the Cross "; not alone for " The Res- 
urrection," but for other lesser works of Rubens, is Ant- 
werp notable. As I sat in the window of the hotel 
looking up at the wonderful spire, I heard the chimes, 
and memory floated back to the tyranny of Alva; to the 
establishment of the Inquisition, b}^ which so many in- 
dustrious Antwerpians were driven to England ; to 1585, 
when it was captured by the Prince of Parma ; to fam- 
ine ; to the loss of its navigation in 1648 ; to the long 
story of ruin and restoration until Antwerp rose above 
them all in 1830, and is now one of the prominent cities 
of Europe and the greatest commercial city in Belgium. 
Splendid are its docks and shipping. The lazy Scheldt, 
immortalized by Goldsmith, is now the scene of an im- 
mense commerce. But to the American it is for its art 



386 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

and its architecture that Antwerp is delightful. The 
old church of St. Jacques is even more splendid than 
the cathedral in its internal decorations. Here is the 
tomb of Rubens, and here the original of his immortal 
beaut}^ the ^''Chapeau de Faille." The "Ecstasy" of 
Yandyke and a wonderful "Descent from the Cross" 
by Quentin Matsys are among its treasures. In the 
museum at Antwerp are some thirty masterpieces 
by Rubens. Indeed, the whole town is his monu- 
ment. 

Napoleon had a great idea of the importance of Ant- 
werp, and he labored unceasingly to make it the first 
naval arsenal of the North Sea. He knew, with his 
vast intelligence, that the trade of London would be at 
the mercy of a hostile fleet so near the mouth of the 
Thames as Antwerp, but this grand idea perished at St. 
Helena. He intended that Antwerp should rise as. a 
province by itself, and he said, " France without the 
frontier of the Rhine and Antwerp is nothing." Now 
the city on the wharf, not fulfilling these dreams, has, 
however, returned to a fair share of its old prosperity. 
It has not yet got back to the days of Charles Y., when 
the money annually put into circulation was 500,000,000 
guilders and when five thousand merchants met daily 
on the Exchange. Those were the days of Shylock! 
But the splendor and prosperity of the sixteenth cen- 
tury have left their mark on the palaces of merchant 
princes, and in the magnificent quays of to-day we see 
what the nineteenth century can also do. 

The Hague is one of those modern French endorse- 
ments of the Napoleonic reign. This luxurious and pretty 
residence of the kings of the Netherlands only goes back 
to a very recent date, yet it was long ago the residence of 
the Stadtholders, and it is agreeable, after the somewhat 



THE HAGUE AND ITS TEEASUEES 287 

musty hotels of Holland, to find here at Scheveningen 
comforts of a more modern town. Here, however, was 
the home of Barneveld ; here he was executed in 1619. 
This grand pensionary of Holland was so beloved that 
after his death the people gathered up the sand which 
was wet with his blood. At The Hague the water is 
more stagnant than in any other part of Holland, and 
though near the sea, the canals and streams do not seem 
to empty themselves into it ; in fact, they flow from it. 
But the town is clean and fresh and pretty. It has 
an unrivalled gallery of paintings, where the greatest 
"short -horn" in existence is on exhibition. I mean 
Paul Potter's " Bull," the most remarkable masterpiece 
of realism ever painted, and which has drawn admiring 
crowds since 1647. This great gallery was brought 
together by Louis Bonaparte, from the House in the 
Wood and other well-known collections, by purchase 
and by conquest. The Bonapartes put a very liberal 
interpretation on meum and tiium, but they had an 
artistic eye. 

My friends who were w^ith me had great privileges, 
being picture connoisseurs and picture-buyers ; so Tve saw 
private collections as well. The Baron Stugracht has a 
noble collection. Indeed, we bathed in Dutch art ; and 
here we saw what we did not see elsewhere, splendid 
collections of Japanese art, Chinese curiosities, and rare 
productions from the Dutch colonies. Considering the 
long connection of Holland with the East Indies, there 
are few evidences of these things in Holland to the 
careless observer. The bed on which the Czar Peter 
slept at Zaandam, the waistcoat of William III. of Eng- 
land, and the Beggars' bowl, which forms a part of the 
insignia of the confederate chiefs of Holland who freed 
Holland from the yoke of Spain, are shown at the Mu- 



288 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

seum; also the dress that William, Prince of Orange, 
wore on the day when he was murdered. 

Here, at the then village of The Hague, were murdered 
the noble brothers De Witt ; here the first citizen of the 
richest country in the world, the victim of calumn}'-, the 
profound statesman who baffled the encroaching forces 
of France, who frightened London with the roar of his 
cannon on the Thames, the noble Cornelius de Witt, 
was torn to pieces by an infuriated mob on the sus- 
picion that he had conspired to assassinate William of 
Orange. 

From The Hague we went to Scheveningen, a water- 
ing-place much frequented by the Dutch aristocracy. 
The fisher folk Avear a costume and drive a one-dog 
chaise ; we pitied the poor dogs. Scheveningen was the 
place where Charles II. embarked for England. Here 
the Prince of Orange landed in 1813, just before the 
downfall of the Bonapartes ; and here, much earlier, the 
famous Van Tromp was killed. We did not care much 
for this sea-side place. It is too new and too crude, but 
I beg pardon of those who do find it charming. 

We went back to Brussels, which was our pied-d- 
terre, our ralljang-point, our place to leave, our trunks ; 
and thence to Ostend, the gayest and most crowded of 
Belgian watering-places. There the red parasol was 
born ; there the fourteen thousand bathers walk on the 
sand in every color of the rainbow. There is the spot 
where Ouida's novel of Moths might have been written. 
It is gay, French, and dissipated, but boasts a magnifi- 
cent Plaje, a walk unrivalled for security and splendor. 
The bathing-machines, drawn by horses, may be counted 
by thousands ; and the poor, tired bathing men, women, 
and horses seem to be worked to death. Here we 
found the best hotel in all our wanderings. It was a 



FAREWELL TO HOLLAND 289 

famous place for good dinners and gay casinos. The 
King of the Belgians was there, and we met many 
American and English friends. For a week's visit to 
the sea I know nothing like it, and we refreshed our- 
selves immensely. But there were no drives, so we 
had very little variety ; we were continually thinking 
of our dear Holland, of our charming journey, of the 
noble galleries, of the poetic " Water, water everywhere, 
nor any drop to drink," for even Amsterdam has to be 
supplied artificially by a company from Haarlem. 

We regretted that we had not travelled by a treck- 
schuit, or day boat, on the canal ; also that we had not 
bought a Dutch gold head-dress, and that we had not 
found the women more beautiful. I am afraid Ave 
shall have to acknowledge, with the author of Vathel:^ 
that there is a certain " oysterishness of eye," a certain 
flabbiness of complexion, w^hich would tell of an 
aquatic surrounding, in the women of Holland ; but we 
found their country so interesting that we forgave the 
inhabitants for not being loveh\ Far from agreeing 
with old Yoltah^e in his satiric '^Adieu, canaiix, ca- 
nards, canailles^^ we said : " Farewell, brave Holland, 
land of liberty, land of industrj^, ingenuity, and pa- 
tience! Farewell, you curious polders, or morasses, 
often thirtj^-two feet below the level of the sea, drained, 
partitioned off by dikes and ramparts, turned into 
fields of wonderful fertility ! Farewell, beautiful sum- 
mer-houses and parks, and huiten jplaatsen, countr}^- 
seats, perfect pictures of prettiness, with meandering 
walks and fantastically cut parterres, with a deep fish- 
pond in the centre of the park ! Farewell, trim box 
borders and trees cut in shapes! Farewell, poetic, 
dreamy canals, and dark - brown ships, and strangely 
quaint sails, and a thousand dreamy Flying Dutchmen 

19 



290 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

in the offing! Farewell, noble old mediaeval houses, 
half tipping over in front ! Farewell, noble galleries of 
the old Dutch masters, never to be sufficiently admired! 
Farewell, noble Amsterdam, who gave New York its 
first name ! Farewell, Holland, land of calm delights !" 
May 5^ou ever, like your heroic lion, 

"Swim, and keep your head above water." 



CHAPTER XVI 

In Praise of Aix-les- Bains — Its Cures and Its Amusements — Rous- 
seau's House — La Grande Chartreuse and Its Famous Liqueur — 
An Exercise in Russian Linguistics — Ttie Marriage of the Due 
d'Aosta — A Mediaeval F^te — The Queen of Italy and Her Royal 
Graces — The House of Savoy and IlsEarl}'^ Home at Aix— English 
Visitors — Princess Beatrice's Birthday. 

After seven summers passed at Aix - les - Bains for 
rheumatism, I feel that I owe it to history and to the 
afflicted to give a somewhat detailed account of its va- 
ried charms and peculiar advantages as a health resort. 

Some one has said that Aix was a place for kings, 
actors, and gamblers. Perhaps it is as w^ell to begin 
with our latest royal sensation, the King of Greece, a 
most gentlemanly person, amiable and sympathetic, and 
devoted to his favorite and successful physician. Dr. 
Brachet, who gave the King a succession of beautiful 
fetes, leading him through these mountain glens by 
torchlight and fireworks, as well as throw^ing open his 
fine chateau of Gresy for his entertainment. We listen 
to delightful Colonne concerts, and see Romeo and Jii- 
liet^ Carmen^ and any number of comedies w-ell played ; 
we have a Yiennese lady orchestra, and, of course, with 
the casinos devoted to baccarat, there are plenty of gam- 
blers. One hundred and fifty 3"ears ago the game of 
faro was invented here, and it was a great resort of the 
dissolute nobles of the time of Louis XY. 

Aix is mentioned in Graramont's memoirs, and there 



292 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

is a long account of the gambling-hell in that forbidden 
book, Cazenova. Here baccarat flourishes, and perhaps 
the most beautiful rooms in Europe for that purpose 
are the Cercle and Yilla des Fleurs, and others now 
thrown open. 

Savoy is a very Catholic country, and every monas- 
tery has its legend, every hillside and waterfall its 
pretty story. We are fond of going for picnics at the 
Chateau of Chatillon, whose family once gave a pope to 
the Church. Chatillon had not only a pope, but a 
beautiful young lady. ISToble lords sued in vain (times 
were so different), for she loved a humble fisherman of 
the Ehone. These great, grand lovers came frequently 
to Chatillon, but. the handsome fisherman only appeared 
at intervals. She determined to go after him and 
arouse his insensible heart. But how to reach him ? The 
Lake of Bourget was then separated from the Khone 
by impassable morasses. There were no canals, still 
less any steamboats, no railroads in the eleventh cen- 
tury ; and how to get to her fisherman of the Ehone 
was a problem. It is said that she conceived the proj- 
ect of making a canal through the morass, and that 
she and her maid cut their way through with their 
scissors, which sounds improbable. It only carries out 
the universal history of Aix, that women have ever 
been a greater factor than man in amusement and en- 
terprise. Aix is indeed alive. Eussian princesses, Eng- 
lish countesses, officers of the Guard, the adventuresses 
of all nations, gambling duchesses, throng the table 
daily, and thence to the gaming-tables. At the eta- 
llissement what a motley group, hurrying hither for 
health ! Of our own country people Mrs. Astor and 
Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft Davis are the most distinguished 
visitors. 



A HEROINE AT AIX-LES-BAINS 293 

In the process of the cure I met a heroine. She is a 
young Parisian, who is having a lame arm pulled into 
place. She is tall, of a perfect figure, with a fine, rosy 
complexion, blue eyes, which flash vividly when she 
talks, an exquisitely sweet mouth, and a chin softly 
dimpled. She has a swaying grace, and when she 
walks to her bath her hair reaches to her feet. I see 
her at the bath before she disappears in the closed cab- 
inet. Her foot has the Spanish slenderness and instep, 
her voice is deep; she talks contralto. She has but 
to say, " It is rather rainy to-day," and your heart is 
won. 

And oh! she is so firm. She does not cry out under 
the torture ! The doctor holds her with his strong arm 
while the masseuse pulls her arm into place. She seems 
to take a moral chloroform, and only a dreadful pallor 
tells what she suffers. " Quelle bravoure," the doctor 
says — " how much braver you are than men !" This 
girl heightens every charm by a most becoming cos- 
tume. She has an air of power, of place, of taking 
everything for her own, and is a natural queen. Yet I 
have seen nothing more soft, sweet, and amiable than 
she is ; as a friend she is fascinating. Kot so learned as 
my Swedish friend, the latter character is still sparkling 
and intelligent. If you should put a knife into the 
French girl's learning it would explode and blow away 
like an omelette soufflee ; but she is bright and reads in- 
telligently. She is very popular with her own sex, and 
every man is in love with her. Yet she is thirty and 
unmarried, and says she will die an old maid. Ameri- 
cans, to the rescue 1 This fine creature, born for the 
splendid side of the tapestry, has had to take some 
of the hardest knocks of fortune, I imagine, and has 
learned how to suffer and to endure. She has had a life 



294 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

of fashionable triumph and a heart-break. George Sand 
had the one supreme conviction that all relations of man 
to woman were selfish ones. I should not be disposed 
to forgive the man who has perhaps wrecked the happi- 
ness of this fine creature. 

There are comparatively few men at Aix, and very few 
who enter the charmed circle. Of course there are any 
number of gamblers and fast men, but few who join 
our dinners and our excursions. The English captains 
who come here to be bathed and cured of gout and rheu- 
matism and the results of wounds in Egypt appear to 
be horribly bored, and so are those who talk to them. 
They are in the condition of Artemus Ward, who said, 
" I'm saddest when I sing, and so are those who hear 
me." I had to talk to one of these, and I went through 
the ut-re-mi-fa-sol of conversation ; tried him on- poli- 
tics, on war, on music, on the Prince of Wales, on beau- 
ty, on his cure, and failed to elicit a spark of intelli- 
gence or sympathy. Finally I got on hunting in Scot- 
land, when he unbent and talked for six minutes con- 
secutively. 

A far more amusing companion is old Toole, the Eng- 
lish actor, who is here for his gout. He is a very intel- 
ligent, amiable person, and always does his best to be 
amusing. He is fond of making up faces above the box 
in which he takes his Berth olet bath, and the bathers 
go to see him grinning and being funny. He is very 
much attached to Mr. Irving, and very much interested 
in hearing about his American trip. 

The greatest sufferers here from nervous prostration 
are women, and American women ! There is something 
in the fulness of life — that brimming excess of emotion, 
thought, effort, enjoyment, and work which only reaches 
an American woman. It is that exaltation which comes 



THE ATTEACTIONS OF AIX-LES-BAINS 295 

from intellectual contact, that supreme excitement of 
society, that generous outgiving of sympathy, the nec- 
essary wear and tear of daily life (which English women 
are spared), which wear out the health of an American 
woman so soon. A woman's life is gone before she 
knows that she has been spending her principal. That 
splendid investment, which should have lasted her life, 
has been squandered, and on whom? On friends she 
loves and would die for ? ]^o, on the sordid call and the 
sense of duty. That powerful electric battery which 
we call our nervous system responds most faithfully 
until its motive power is used up. " Those white threads 
called nerves are the conductors of force, the primary 
engines of motion, the arbiters of pain, the dispensers of 
joy." Alas that they cease to be anything but arbiters 
of pain after a few years' overuse ! The cure here is 
magical ; the lame throw away their crutches, the stoop- 
ing stand up straight, the suffering faces grow smooth, 
and all that made us miserable "goes to disappear." 
The weather is like that of America — warm with fre- 
quent thunder-showers, cool nights, and an atmosphere 
like that of the White Mountains at night. Aix re- 
joices in most delightfully healthy surroundings of 
farms, vineyards, and fresh water, the most delicious 
fruit, and the best hotels in the world. 

The drives are endless and beautiful. ISTo one can 
exhaust Aix in many excursions; indeed, in August, 
after a long rain, such freshness, such skies, such views, 
are not to be found out of Paradise. Of course these 
valleys and mountains are not so grand as Switzerland, 
but there is a unique prettiness which enchants the eye, 
appeals to the fancy, wins and keeps the heart. But 
there is the great break of the Alps, through which runs 
the rail to Turin, and how incomprehensibly grand are 



298 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

those mighty sentinels which stand between Aix and 
Chambery, the city lying like a diadem on a velvet 
cushion; the old chateau, with its flying buttresses, 
dominating the sweet, picturesque, curious, beautiful old 
town! Here one can find bric-a-brac and a delicious 
dinner at the Hotel de France. Dr. Brachet, the host 
of Aix, frequently brings his parties hither. One of 
the most interesting expeditions from Chambery is to 
the house of Jean Jacques Eousseau, Les Charmettes — 
a delightful valley approached through shady groves. 
The flower-garden is still fresh. Byron said of it, 
" Wildly lonely, grand, and beautiful, the place puts one 
out of conceit with himself and the world, and in love 
with solitude and reverie." 

Yery strange is the change from these sombre, poetic 
forests back to gay little Aix, its casinos, bright flowers, 
music, and noise. Every one shouts aloud — the coach- 
man cracks his whip, that every sheep, goat, donkey 
may get out of the way. Eussian princesses elbow 
grave lady abbesses ; two Turks in fez caps drive si- 
lently by ; pretty Parisians, daintily shod, trip over the 
sulphurous canals ; the Italian marquis goes out walk- 
ing with the French Duke and German Count. 

But we are not content, we must get into the country 
again. 

The Mont du Chat, the green mountains, apparently 
seamed with rocky ribbons ; the thatched cottages, where 
dwell the contented peasants ; the humble auberge, where 
the wayfarer gets bread and wine and cheese ; the com- 
fortable homes of the small proprietors ; the beautiful 
villas of Count Menabrea and Baron Blanc — everything 
is a subject for a water-color, from the thatched roof 
rich in lichens up to the old Savoyard chateau a thou- 
sand years old. So we pass some mediaeval church with 



THE LAKE OF BOURGET 297 

its memorial cross, " A iNTotre Dame du Bon Secours " ; 
past fields and vineyards, now, alas ! all ruined by the 
rain — seeing the peasant women washing their clothes 
in the stream, the gay and jolly peasant girls with red 
cheeks and white teeth and " hands which offer early 
flowers " — to the Lake of Bourget. 

Nothing can be prettier than this gem of the moun- 
tains, and it holds the biggest of trout, bream, lota, 
perch, eels, and carp. To say that, with its peacock- 
green-blae tint, its mysterious profondeur^ " Bourget is 
beautiful," is to utter the most dreary of commonplaces. 
It is a dream of beauty, and on its bank is dropped the 
old Abbey of Hautecombe. 

. We wind up to the top of the Col du Chat, gaining a 
magnificent view as we go, and the air becoming more 
and more invigorating. Aix lies below us, a pretty 
little city, with its great health etahlissement. Many 
a woman who has left a part of her youth in the 
atria of the gay capitols comes here to recuperate ; all 
the lame and sore-throated ones come here and are 
cured. The hotels are perfect. There is no lack of 
temptation to those who love the good things of this 
world in moderation (or even too much) at Aix. 

Truly Aix-les-Bains has every advantage — scenery for 
the lovers of nature, history for the learned, gay and 
varied society to attract the curious. Monks, nuns, 
priests, soldiers, kings, and queens walk these little 
crooked stone-lined streets, either bent on pleasure or 
health, perhaps on both, and are cured of rheumatism, 
bronchitis, paralysis, or sleeplessness, or a mind dis- 
eased. The great thermal establishment has its atom- 
ized vapor-baths, its douches, and its swimming-baths. 
Disease flies away from this arsenal of health. Marlioz 
is at hand with its hot alum springs, Challes has its 



298 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEKITY 

intensified sulphur, and yet there is not a bad smell in 
this lovely neighborhood. 

Away at the south are the Dauphinois Alps, cov- 
ered with snow. We are apt to have a cool turn oc- 
casionally, a sharp turn of cold weather after the in- 
tensely heavy rains. But nothing can be more exquisite 
than the climate. The splendid vegetation spreading to 
the foot of these stone mountains produces an extraor- 
dinary variety, with here and there the villa of the old 
local nobility — famous old titles. A proud and isolated 
grandeur is characteristic of Savoy. 

I have made the famous expedition to La Grande 
Chartreuse, about twenty miles from Aix. The drive 
from Saint - Laurent -du- Pont is, perhaps, one of the 
most picturesque in Europe. You go ever on and up- 
ward, through astounding granite peaks, immense for- 
ests, and rushing waterfalls until you reach the splen- 
did plateau where the pious Bruno founded his grand 
old monastery. Here the Chartreux leads his solitary 
life, and here at midnight the sound of prayer and 
praise has been heard for a thousand years. The his- 
torian of the order says : 

" At the time when the midnight assassin is prowhng 
and committing his deadly crimes, when the debauchee is 
wasting his life in feasting, when the gambler is spend- 
ing the inheritance of his fathers, when all crime stalks 
abroad, the hour of midnight, then does the solitary 
pray for the souls of those who never pray for them- 
selves." It is a village in stone this monastery, and 
no woman is permitted to go farther than the chapel. 
However, Queen Victoria was invited to see the cells, 
and it was considered a great concession. The brothers 
are very rich from the sale of the hqueur Chartreuse, 
whose golden drops are distilled from the flowers in 



THE MONKS OF CHAKTKEUSE 299 

the meadow, and whose rich heart of good cheer is 
born amid the sternest asceticism. It is a curious mis- 
sion and history that of this famous liqueur, and I never 
see a glass of it at a gay dinner but I remember the 
white-robed, prayerful monks who pass days without 
speaking, except to say, as they dig their graves, " Mes 
freres, il faut mourir." When a brother dies and is 
buried the other brothers do not know of it, excepting 
the few who administer the funeral rites. It is a place 
where religion has stifled the language of the heart, 
where man strives to lose himself in the infinite. Strange 
to say, it attracts yearly many sad and earnest souls, 
and they do, in their way, a vast deal of good with 
their money and with their prayers. 

A ludicrous anecdote was told me of an American 
brother who had joined them. He got tired of hearing 
" We must all die," every hour ; so in passing a pious 
monk who thus saluted him he answered, feeling in per- 
fect health himself, " We must all die ! no, you bet !" 

They are healthy, and live to be a very great age. 
Each brother has his little garden where he can raise 
vegetables for his simple meal. 

At Aix most people wear plain clothes, go off on 
long, healthful excursions, drive in shabby carriages, 
drop into theatre and Casino in a humble, unpretending 
manner, and make agreeable friendships sans gene. Life 
gains a new value, as we thus pick up the pine cones 
in the forests with which to later on illuminate the fire- 
side at home. 

Having been six weeks at Aix, where the sun generally 
shines, but where it has lately been cold and autumnal, 
it is almost a tragedy to hear the newly arrived English 
speak of the wet summer to which they have been ex- 
posed. One writer says: "When we wanted three 



300 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

weeks of sweltering sunshine to ripen the Avheat in the 
ear, we had a deluge of chilling rain that turned all the 
low-lying lands into vast lagoons. The fields in Essex 
are swamps, in which a ruined grain crop lies rotting in 
putrid, stagnant marshes." Kuskin says : " An English 
sun is like a bad half-crown at the bottom of a basin of 
dirty water, at best." Lord Tennyson, speaking of Edin- 
burgh, bewails the ''bitter east wind and misty summer 
of the gray old metroplis of the north." What must it be 
now ? The wheat crop of England will fall 33 per cent, 
below the average ! 

" Damp has become a deluge ; the straw is ruined, and 
lies decomposing in a veritable slough of despond. 
Barley and oats have done better. Beans and pease 
are but a poor crop ; the potato, though abundant, is 
blighted by disease ; never was a worse hay crop ; hops 
are poor." So say the English papers. God help the 
small farmers ! 

There has been a Princess Dolgourka here, who was 
supposed to be a member of that royal, unfortunate 
family one of whom was the widow of the Czar. Some 
Eussians have interpreted for us the feminine and mas- 
culine of Eussian names. The Governor of Moscow is 
the Prince Dolgouroukoff, his wife the Princess Dol- 
gourka. But that again is said to be an error, and that 
it is only some Polish names which change their femi- 
nines, as the Count Potocki and the Countess Potocka, 
In Eussia, generally speaking, the termination " off " 
changes to a feminine " ova." One of the best dancers 
at the theatre is Mademoiselle Froloff. If she were 
married she would be Madame Erolova. But if one 
marries a Menshikoff, as they are princes, she would 
be Princess Menshikoff, not Menshika. A language 
which is complicated by degrees of rank as well as de- 



EMINENT VISITORS TO AIX-LES-BAINS 301 

grees of grammar and gender must be a hard one to 
master. 

I have just heard a Colonne concert composed entirely 
of works of Benjamin Godard, an author of great orig- 
inahty as to operas, songs, waltzes, overtures, and etudes. 
Some of his songs were well interpreted by the admira- 
ble artist Madame Colonne. 

We have been listening to the music of the Roi 
d'Ts, that remarkable story of an opera which waited 
thirty years for recognition. M. Paravey, the manager 
of the Opera Comique, however, will bring it out in 
splendid style at the theatre in the faubourg, where the 
Opera Comique in Paris is now installed until the new 
building on the Boulevard is ready. 

Lord and Lady Elgin, of London; Lady Marcia 
Cholmondeley ; Count Belgioso, Milan ; Lady Anna 
Chandos-Pole ; Count Ghyka, Roumania ; Prince de Bel- 
monte, Pome ; Yiscount Oxenbridge, London ; Count- 
ess Schaefenberg, Austria ; Lord and Lady Oxenbridge 
— are among the recent arrivals. This gives some idea 
of the cosmopolitan character of Aix. I transcribe one 
of my old letters from Aix-les-Bains of September 1, 
1888: 

'^When Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was taking his 
scholarly thought and his courtly smile through the 
English court he said to a friend that the ^ royal family 
are the best people in the world, excepting those of 
Beverly Farms.' I have thought of that many times, 
as I have seen various members of them in Europe; and 
since I have seen the quiet, unobtrusive royalties here 
from other places I have observed that same excel- 
lence in them. 

"The Duke and Duchess of Montpensier are here 
now, and verj^ much such people as we should like to 



302 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

meet at home. We have also a number of very dis- 
tinguished people who are not royalties, including Mr. 
H. W. Smith, the prime seller of books and the leader 
of the House of Commons. We have also a councillor 
from China, who has been trjang to obtain concessions 
from the Flowerv Kino^dom, and so on. 

" We hear much of the life of the President of the 
French Republic at Fontainebleau. While during the 
reign of l^apoleon III. very few members of the nobili- 
ty of patrician France would ever pass the imperial 
threshold, they now forget and forgive, and are ready 
to visit the president. It is a new departure, and Ma- 
dame Carnot might organize fetes in the gardens with 
the docility of a courtier and the imagination of an ar- 
tist of the eighteenth century, if she wished to. 

"But she knows that the day of omnipotent queens 
and pleasure-loving chatelaines is over. All those who 
once were as powerful as Csesar, as beautiful as Cleo- 
patra, were destined to see their laurels drop, their 
sceptre fall, their empire diminish. A w^oman holds 
her power to charm as Balzac's hero held the Peau 
de Chagrin. Every day it shrinks, until at last there is 
nothing left ; and when a woman had a throne she was 
obliged to own that even that make-weight did not 
bring permanency. A queen driven from her throne, 
naked, in winter snows, like Elizabeth of Hungary, suf- 
ers more than she who wanders from a snow-beleaguered 
hut every day ; the woman who has had the most suffers 
the most. Poor Eugenie ! 

" Madame Carnot is not using her power or her oppor- 
tunity like Marie Antoinette. She is too w^ise a little 
woman of the nineteenth century. She does not think 
it sensible to live a few minutes with the stars in order 
to drop down to the stones. 



ROYAL WEDDING AT TUEIN 303 

^' We talk and think much of Count Crispi, the Italian 
diplomat. And this coming marriage of the Duke 
d'Aosta, which is to unite the Bonapartes still more 
closely to Italy, brings him into unusual promi- 
nence." 

I have seen a number of brilliant fetes in Europe, be- 
ginning with the illumination of Yenice in September, 
1869, for the beautiful Empress Eugenie; but I think 
the week at Turin which I spent looking at the me- 
diaeval festivities, invoked in honor of that curious event 
the marriage of the Prince Amadeo, Duke d'Aosta, to 
his niece, Letitia Bonaparte, was, perhaps, the most in- 
teresting in the way of sight-seeing. In the first place, 
the near relationship of the royal pair shocked us, but 
as we had not been consulted we could not be blamed 
for that. However, it is a good way to begin an emotion 
by being shocked; and then the groom was decidedly 
the most interesting and romantic-looking character of 
his day ; a sort of Hamlet, with his fine attenuated feat- 
ures overshadowed by a mysterious sadness; elegant, 
princely, tall, and graceful. He, the ex-King of Spain, 
was of a religious turn of mind, and in his youth had 
aspired to be a priest, a monk, a cardinal, perhaps Pope. 
But his ro3^al father preferred a career in this world 
for his handsome youngest son, so he had married him 
to the young, high-spirited heiress Maria de Cisterna ; 
and she, poor thing, after giving him three boys, had 
died — killed, it was said, by her sufferings in Spain after 
two years of queenship. The royal couple had a very 
near thing in getting away with their lives from Madrid. 
It was said that her husband always wore her hair in a 
bracelet around his wrist, and that he was practically 
inconsolable. 

That this nineteenth-century Hamlet was to marry, 



304 AlSr EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

and his own sister's daughter at that, surprised and be- 
wildered Europe. The Pope gave his permission, and 
King Humbert, devotedly attached to his brother, de- 
termined that the wedding should be the proudest cere- 
monial of the age. 

At the royal charges every theatrical company was 
sent to Turin, where for a week they played in corners 
of the great squares, in temporary booths, the plays of 
the great Italian writers. As in the days of Dante, one 
could wander by and hear them. The Opera House was 
open every evening with the best singers. 

Turin was very fond of Amadeo, for he lived there, 
and his manners were most attractive. He and his hand- 
some Prince Emanuel were always walking the streets, 
bowing to everj^ one, and followed by vivas. Turin 
could not sufficiently decorate itself with banners, flow- 
ers, flags, ribbons, and roses. Triumphal arches opened 
every street whose long vista ended in the sublime 
Alpine vision of Monte Eosa. The bands of music, the 
files of soldiers, the illuminated evenings when the 
" wandering Po " of Goldsmith's time gave back the 
mirrored torches — all was beauty. They can do these 
things in Italy. Nature supplements them — it is all f esta. 

Every day some royalty would arrive. Queen Maria 
Pia of Portugal, youngest daughter of Victor Emanuel, 
came first, with her husband and son. She, a striking 
Italian blonde, with red hair, shared the favor of the 
public with Amadeo, as one of the most regal of all this 
kingly race, both for manners and gracious courage. 
And we who were lookers-on would drive out to see 
the prospective bride and her mother, the pious Princess 
Clotilde, going to meet all these relatives. 

The father, " Plon-Plon," Prince Jerome Bonaparte, 
and his sister, the Princess Mathilde, had gone down 



A MAGNIFICENT PROCESSION 305 

with US on the same train from Aix-les-Bains, so we felt 
in a remote way as if we Tvere of the wedding-party. 

The first time I saw Letitia she was dressed in red, 
which became her dark beauty. Her likeness to the 
First Consul was striking. She has the most "Bona- 
parte" face of them all. She was driving with her 
mother (the Princess Clotilde, who never wears anything 
but black) to meet the King and Queen of Ital}^. This 
was, of course, the most important arrival of all. 

The Count Gianotti, to whom I owed the pleasure of 
being in Turin at all, had sent me cards for the great 
ceremony at the Palazzo Madama ; so a friend of mine 
and I, with a servant to attend us, drove to the palace 
at an early hour, where, standing in a large gallery, we 
could see the procession go by to a private chapel. 

It was a handsome function. First the Archbishop 
of Turin and his attendant clergy in all the glory of 
Koman Catholic dress; then the Syndic and city officials, 
each very brave in his fine clothes ; then Gianotti as 
prefect of the palace, strikingly handsome. Then the 
Queen Marguerite, " the Pearl of Savoy," who was es- 
corted by the King of Portugal. She was magnificent 
in white satin covered with gold embroidery, flashing 
with diamonds, her famous pearls dependent to her 
waist, and a lace cloak hanging over her train from her 
shoulders — a lace which made every woman's mouth 
water. I have never seen a human being so splendidly 
dressed or looking so queenly as she did on that occa- 
sion. Then followed the Queen Maria Pia, all in blue, 
with the arms of Portugal embroidered on her blue 
velvet train. She wore a net-work crown of sapphires 
in her red hair, and it was most becoming. King Hum- 
bert had her on his arm. 

Then came the bride, with the jewels of Queen Hor- 



806 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

teiise,which had been given her by the Empress Eugenie ; 
she wore also a lace veil, the present of Queen Mar- 
guerite, which swept the ground. She was conducted 
by her father. After her followed the melancholy, 
handsome groom, looking for once radiantly happy, and 
conducting his sister and future mother-in-law. 

Prince Plon-Plon (long since separated from his wife) 
played his silent part well. The Princess Mathilde walked 
with the Prince of ISTaples, and then came a long line of 
relatives and ladies in waiting, all in magnificent cos- 
tumes. I saw then where Titian and Tintoretto and 
Paul Yeronese had got the subjects for their immortal 
pictures and ceilings; it was from studying such cere- 
monials as this. It seemed impossible that our nine- 
teenth century could have produced this mediaeval 
grandeur. 

I caught a glimpse of the group in the chapel. The 
Princess Letitia knelt first to Kiug Humbert, then to 
Princess Clotilde, her mother ; then to her father, who 
conducted her to the altar. The long ceremony which 
followed was too fatiguing to follow, so we left, to see 
her again in the afternoon as she received the congrat- 
ulations of the city, on a high estrade of flowers, in the 
Piazza Yittorio Emanuele. 

There was a procession of all the gilded youth of 
Turin and JSTorthern Italy, headed by the three sons of 
Amadeo, dressed in the costume of Prince Eugene — a 
three-cornered hat, white powdered hair, the close-fitting 
embroidered coat and full skirts of the military uni- 
form of that period. 

Two hundred of them acted as escort to the Queen — 
"Gardes a Peine," indeed, out of Dumas — while two 
hundred others escorted the bride, and two hundred re- 
mained to take care of the happy groom. It was a 



MAEQUIS d'aZEGLIO 307 

royal cortege. And then we sat gazing at this group 
of kings and queens who were seated on the gigantic 
flower-basket for two hours, as music pla3^ed and can- 
nons were fired. Finally the beautiful rose -covered 
balloon (with the initials of the royal pair), which was 
fastened over the floral estrade, was allowed to rise 
serenely, to carry the news to the stars, and carrier- 
pigeons were despatched to all the capitals to bear the 
tidings to the courts of Europe. I was amused at this 
total forgetfulness of the fact that this was the nine- 
teenth century instead of the fourteenth. This ignoring 
of the vulgar modern telegraph - wire had a sublime 
mediaeval insolence in it which added the last rose-leaf. 

In the evening we went to the opera to see the King 
and Queen receive an ovation. 

The ball at the palace was on Thursday, and there 
again we saw the royal pair and all their noble rela- 
tives. I had a little talk Avith the Marquis d'Azeglio, 
the man who was so long minister to England, who had 
just published the delightful letters of his mother, a 
perfect picture of the times through which she had 
lived. Her more distinguished son, Massimo d'Azeglio, 
had died some time before. This polished nobleman 
pointed out to me some of the most distinguished beau- 
ties of the former court of Yictor Emanuel, and gave 
me many interesting anecdotes of these children of the 
Ke Galantuomo. " But," said he, " this marriage is the 
queerest story 3^et. Amadeo is so in love that it would 
have killed him to give her up." He took me to the 
gallery of famous armor and showed me some histori- 
cal pieces. Bat although the marquis was a fervent 
Italian, he preferred to talk of England, where he had 
spent twenty-two years of his life. 

The Queen was, of course, the object of his most fer- 



308 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

vent eulogies. " She never forgets," said lie ; " her mem- 
ory is fabulous, and her tact perfect." 

He said that the Princess Clotilde was wholly ab- 
sorbed in religion, and that she and the Prince Amadeo, 
or, as they called him, the Due d'Aosta, were very much 
in sympathy. He told me that the marriage of the 
Princess Letitia had been a great anxiety to her, as 
the Bonapartes were not favorites in Italy, but that a 
marriage with Prince Emanuel, her cousin, had been 
thought of. "Now she has married her uncle, his 
father," said the Marquis, with a queer contraction of 
the mouth. 

There had been a marriage arranged for her with 
Prince Torlonia of Eome, but the Pope had interposed 
his veto, and that match was broken off. 

I remember seeing her on horseback in a scarlet habit, 
coming in from her mother's country-house, on her 
bridal morning, accompanied by that same band of cous- 
ins and friends who were later on to become "Gardes 
a Reine." 

She affects scarlet ; it is the Bonaparte livery. Her 
uncle-husband lived scarcely more than a year, com- 
mending her lovingly to the care of King Humbert, 
who has nobly discharged his trust. The brothers loved 
each other very fondly. 

The Prince of Naples was, of course, at this wedding, 
then a pretty boy of seventeen. He looked like his 
mother, and his German blood, inherited from his grand- 
mother, who was a sister of the King of Saxony, Albert 
Frederick, spoke in his light hair and fair skin. He had 
a brow of remarkable strength, a fine, serious counte- 
nance, and his mother's grace of character. He is now 
twenty-eight, and is married. The only defect in his 
appearance is that he is rather short. 



THE QriKINAL SHOULD REMEMBER AIX 309 

I cannot leave this delightful fete without referring 
again to the quaint brightness, social tact, and sweet- 
ness of the Queen. She is a subject one cannot leave. 

" She had a hard task when she first married," said 
the Marquis d' Azeglio. " The Italian Court had been 
for many years deprived of a queen, and was thoroughly 
disorganized. The Sardinian king resembled his great 
ancestor, Henry lY. of France, too much in his private 
life to surround his widowed throne with much elegance 
or dignity; but she has re-arranged it all, and she has 
the royal gift of never forgetting a face or a name." 

It is wonderful that the House of Savoy is not more 
mindful of Aix, for there it had its origin. The Eoyal 
House of Prussia remembers well its humble birth, in 
the eagle's nest at HohenzoUern, before the Duchy of 
Brandenburg became its nursery and Berlin its parade- 
ground. But the House of Savoy, whose dead lie buried 
in yonder Hautecombe — whose ruined tower, covered 
with ivy, is still pointed out — never seems to allude to 
its origin, except in the name ^''Marguerite de Savoie^^ 
given to the most beautiful and beloved queen on earth ; 
never seems to remember this birthplace of its valiant 
race ! Here are the ruins of the old Chateau de Char- 
bonniere, which was the beginning of the Quirinal. 
Francis I. took this chateau in 1556 and razed it to the 
ground. Emanuele Filiberto repaired and restored it 
in 1590. Charles Emanuel became its owner in 1600. 
Sully, who attacked it, met with a formidable resistance. 
Finally, a band of beautiful women emerged from that 
garrison, and, armed with the most potent weapons, 
their nails and their smiles, proved more dangerous 
than many cannon. The result was, of course, an hon- 
orable capitulation, and the men got the worst of it, as 
they generally do. 



310 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Back in Aix-les-Bains again. Let me quote from an 
old letter : 

" The Queen of England has had her portrait painted 
some two hundred times, and has been photographed as 
many more, I dare say, but never did she exhibit a more 
characteristic picture than yesterday as she walked out 
of the humble little English church at Aix-les-Bains, 
where she devoutly worships. A short, stout figure, a 
very red face (the characteristics of the Georges), light- 
blue eyes, a long upper lip, straight bandeaux of gray 
hair, dressed in deep and very simple mourning, with 
the portrait of Prince Albert at her breast, the most 
famous woman of the nineteenth century, the Queen 
of England, Ireland, and Scotland and the Empress of 
India, walked to her gilded chair of state through rows 
of not impertinent starers, and took her seat, with the 
Princess Beatrice (a very pretty girl) on one side and 
Lady Churchill on the other, the Marchioness of Ely 
and Sir Henry Ponsonby a little farther on. The latter 
placed a cushion before the Queen, and she followed the 
service, ' devoutly kneeling.' 

" After the service she rose first, the whole congrega- 
tion standing and waiting, and she passed, out, grace- 
fully turning to the right and left, and looking rather 
than bowing her acknowledgments. Yery short and 
stout as she is, there is a great air of natural dignity and 
power about her, and a natural grace, both of course 
improved to the highest point by courtly breeding. She 
and the Princess entered one coroneted carriage and 
were whirled off to The Europe, her hotel, in which she 
takes up a dependance in the garden, called the Yilla 
Mottet. Her ladies followed in another carriage at a 
respectful distance. The Princess Beatrice is a tall, 
light-haired, blonde girl, not at all like her mother, and 



AIX-LES-BAINS AND CHAMBEET 311 

has been thought prettier than the other royal daugh- 
ters. 

" Eoyalty needs repose. It is a hard, fatiguing, and 
worrying business. The perpetual cares of a house- 
keeper are intensified in the life of a queen. For in- 
stance, we see that the Empress of India has lately had 
to change servants ; some old and competent ones have 
left, dissatisfied with their last place, and she has had to 
get in a new set ; and, what is worse, to try to make 
them live together peaceably. 'No Nqw England house- 
keeper during spring cleaning, when the cook leaves, 
has a busier week than poor Queen Victoria has all the 
time. She takes these worries hard, too. She is of 
'that anxious disposition'; she is no longer young; 
she is not in good health. No wonder that her faithful 
daughter, Beatrice — the best daughter that ever lived — 
was anxious to take her overworked mamma off for 
a holiday to that delicious spot where heaven meets 
earth, or earth meets heaven, half way. The Talmud 
tells us there is such a place ; we call it Aix-les-Bains. 

" Three years ago the Princess Beatrice went to Aix- 
les-Bains for her rheumatism, and was delighted with 
its rare beauty. She made her first essay in authorship 
by writing an account of this famous place in Good 
Words for January, 1883. For the last journey that 
she and her mother were to take together before her 
marriage she selected Aix-les-Bains — the fertile, smiling 
spot, with its snow mountains and massive, cragged, 
curious peaks, its enchanting Lake of Bourget. There 
is something about this place which appeals to the fancy, 
thrills the imagination, and touches the heart. 

" I thought, as I approached it from Turin, coming 
up from Rome, that never did mountains stand off so 
grandly. Chambery is a picturesque old town ; it lies 



312 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

on its green velvet cushion of grass like the necklace of 
a queen ; from afar I could see the old chateau, with its 
flying buttress, dominating the curious and mediaeval 
town — and from that lofty old tower floated the stand- 
ard of England. 

" Soon we reached a view of the valley of Aix, domi- 
nated by the high peak of the Mvolet, on whose sum- 
mit glitters a grand cross of silver. How sweet and 
garden -like it looked, this dear valley, although snow 
still lingered on the mountains immediately about the 
town. Everywhere floated the cross of St. George and 
the lion of England. Soldiers in the gaudy uniform of 
France were marching through the streets, and at the 
gates of the Hotel de I'Europe stood a guard of honor. 
What had happened to the peaceful valley, which last 
summer boasted nothing more warlike than gay Savoy- 
ard ladies driving their pony phaetons, all hung with 
bells and gay worsted fringes, or picturesque peasant 
women with their bundles on their heads ? Then I re- 
membered, as a gay officer all dressed in Savoyard uni- 
form passed me, that Queen Victoria and Princess 
Beatrice Avere at Aix. These soldiers in gray and gold 
were a guard of honor that the Queen did not need. 
For was not Mont du Chat there, grim and cold, plung- 
ing his feet in Lake Bourget as he lifted his head to the 
sky, in Avhich he found a blue as pellucid as that in 
which he bathed his feet ? The JSTivolet, too, was stand- 
ing sentinel over this most beautiful valley. And these 
were her guards of honor ! 

" I had not supposed anything could possibly improve 
Aix, it was so pretty before; but banners and music im- 
prove everything. While the French and English flags 
looked gay enough against the bluest of skies, the sol- 
diers showed up well against the stone walls of the old 



ROYALTY SIGHTSEEING 313 

chateaux, and the fresh green and the budding trees of 
this lovely primavera were perfect in their beauty. 

" The next day, along the Lake of Bourget, I saw a 
strange figure, a man on horseback, making mysterious 
gestures to clear the way. He seemed to be waving 
his whip convulsively in the air, as if he were bringiDg 
tidings of great joy or of terrible trouble. He proved 
to be an English pad-groom, and he preceded a plain 
chariot in which sat four ladies. My driver turned to 
me, and, raising his hat respectfully, said, 'La Reine^ ; 
he drew up on one side of the road and stopped, while her 
Majesty, the Princess Beatrice, and two ladies drove on. 

"And after that it was an every-day occurrence to see 
the royal party pass, to meet them in our walks, to see 
them at church, and to hear of their explorations of the 
delicate lovely lake and town of Annecy — that pretty 
town where Time stands with his finger on his lip, say- 
ing, ' Respect some of my best work ' — or to hear how 
they had been up to Hautecombe, or to Miery, Mouxy, 
and Clarafoud, those queer little stone villages, where 
the peasants have lived under the same roof with their 
horses and cows, their goats and their sheep, for four 
centuries. There, in the green fields, play their children 
in long gowns and little black caps, dressed just as they 
were dressed four hundred years ago, and as you will 
see them costumed in Eembrandt's pictures. The peas- 
ant women wear a heart and cross on a velvet ribbon 
to-day, just as their grandmothers did hundreds of years 
ago. One day the Queen and the Princess, Lady Ely, 
Lady Churchill, and Sir Henry Ponsonby, Dr. Reid and 
two other doctors, drove up to St. Innocent's to see the 
rabbits. These innocent little pink-eyed Angoras had 
never had a more distinguished call. The rabbits are 
plucked alive (it does not hurt them), and their fur 



314 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

makes a soft yarn, out of which the peasants knit little 
shawls, tippets, gloves, wristlets, knee-caps, and so on. 
It was very pretty to see the Princess take the rabbits in 
her soft, white hands, and how she laughed at their opal 
eyes and long, fluffy fur. Some of these funny little 
animals are black, others white, and still others gray. 
Then she made the young peasant girl in the Savoyard 
cap and apron teach her to spin the yarn on a long 
spinning-wheel. All the party bought some specimens 
of this original rabbit-work. 

" But perhaps the most picturesque of the royal visits 
was to the old Abbaye of Hautecombe, a fine old 
gloomy monastery on the farther side of the Lake of 
Bourget, built so as to exclude every ray of sun from 
its austere cloisters, excepting for one hour of the day. 
Here dwell the white-robed Cistercian monks, whose 
rule is only less severe than that of La Trappe. They 
guard with their vigils and their prayers the tombs of 
the princes of the house of Savoy. A steamboat had 
been chartered for her Majesty and suite, and the hoary- 
headed old prior came out to meet her in a six-oared 
pinnace. The monks were all in their white woollen 
capuchins, and wore ropes and crosses at the waist. 
Among them was one monk of English birth, who had 
not seen his sovereign for thirty years. What a beauti- 
ful picture could have been made of this scene, as the 
red flag of England floated from the steamboat, and the 
mountains of the Dent du Chat, the grim Rivard, the 
distant Jura Alps, the grand masses which rise up 
towards Chambery, the ever snow-clad Dauphinois Alps 
to the far south, looked down on this exquisite Lake of 
Bourget, with its mysterious shadows and sheen, its pea- 
cock - green color ! ' It was not the hand of man, but 
the hand of God, that played with these masses,' says 



315 

Lamartine, describing the mountains about the Lake of 
Bourget. The Queen advanced to the front of the 
boat ; the aged prior was assisted up the side of the 
steamer and made a low reverence. The Queen, with 
a courtesy that did her honor, bent for his blessing. The 
boats proceeded to the landing ; then the monks, chant- 
ing, walked up the hill, follow^ed by the prior carrying 
the cross, the queen, her ladies, and attendants following. 
And Fancy whispered, ' Was it Mary Queen of Scots at 
Holyrood, or a more fortunate Queen V 

" The Queen, who speaks French like a native, entirely 
without an accent, as does the Princess, entered the con- 
vent, talking to the prior, and, with the brothers, she 
admired the view, which commands the whole lake. 
Having looked at the tombs of the princes of Savoy, and 
having inspected the collection of sculptures, paintings, 
and frescoes, the royal visitors partook of luncheon, 
w^hich, with the delicious trout of the lake, the cordial 
of Chartreuse, and the wines of the happy valley, was 
by no means an ascetic repast. Probably in all her 
varied journeys the Queen has never assisted to make a 
prettier picture, nor could she ever have seen a vision of 
more perfect natural loveliness. 

" On Tuesday, the 14th of April, the Princess Beatrice 
arrived at the age of 28. She struck me as a tall, grace- 
ful, pretty girl with an American look, and with a 
' nez Watteau,' as the French say. Tennyson calls it ' a 
nose tip-tilted like a flower.' She has very fine brown 
eyes and fresh, red lips. A more simple-mannered girl 
than this Princess I never saw. The whole English 
colony at the various hotels joined in presenting her 
with flowers on the occasion of her birthday, and she 
w^as embarrassed and frightened to death ; her lips and 
hands trembled as she tried to say, ' I thank you.' 



316 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

" It is very evident that the Queen of England and 
her family have no love of purple and fine linen when 
they are ' off duty.' ' Our royal family has always been 
dowdy,' said a loyal Englishwoman at Aix-les-Bains, as 
she returned from presenting some flowers to the Prin- 
cess Beatrice on her birthday. 

" ' Well,' said an outsider, ' what did the Princess 
wear? I desire to know what clothes princesses wear 
when they are at home in the morning.' 

" ' An old checked black-and-white silk dress, which I 
should have given to my maid,' answered the loyal 
Englishwoman ; ' but she was very lovely and court- 
eous, and blushed and stammered and was frightened 
when we offered her the flowers, just like any other 
girl. I could not help loving her for it.' 

" In the evening a fete had been arranged in her honor, 
which was a pretty bit of illumination. The Yilla Mot- 
tet, which was the dependance of the Hotel de I'Europe, 
where the Queen lived, was all lighted up by colored 
lanterns. The local choral unions of Chambery and 
Aix marched about singing, ' God save the Queen.' 
Fireworks burst from every wooded nook and corner 
and from a splendid arch which bore the royal arms and 
the order of George and the Dragon. In colored lights 
the illuminated ' Dieu et Mon Droit,' and the name of 
* Beatrice' shone from many an arch. These varied 
lights, falling on the mountains, still covered with snow, 
produced a startling effect. Twenty-eight guns, at reg- 
ular intervals, thundered forth their hot-lipped greeting. 

" 'And Jura answered from her misty shroud 

Back to the answering Alps, who called to her aloud.' 

" The Princess stood on a balcony and bowed repeat- 
edly to the crowd. 



THE FUNERAL OF THE PRINCE EVIPERIAL 317 

" It has been said that this Princess has known sor- 
row ; that she was very fond of the Prince Imperial, 
' Eugene Louis Jean Joseph,' the son of Eugenie and the 
Emperor of France, who was killed in Zululand, 1st of 
June, 18Y9. It is certain that when thousands gath- 
ered at Camden House to honor the funeral of that poor 
boy the Queen and Princess Beatrice came first; the 
Queen knelt, and prayed at the foot of the coflBn, and 
laid on it a w^reath of gold laurel leaves, tied with a 
white ribbon, leaving her card, on which were some 
words written in French. 

" The Princess Beatrice, w^eeping bitterly, placed an 
exquisite wreath of porcelain flowers on the grave. 

" ' I wish it to last forever,' she said. 

" The Prince of Wales and his lovely wife sent a wreath 
of purple violets and white clematis, with these words 
(in the handwriting of the Prince) : ' In token of affec- 
tionate regard for the Prince, who lived the most spot- 
less of lives, and died a soldier's death, fighting for our 
cause in Zululand.' 

''Alas ! he loved Beatrice, poor boy! It may be that 
this memory has chastened the heart and subdued the 
manner of the Princess Beatrice, for her face has a 
shade of melancholy, and her smile even is not joyous. 

" We should not, however, remember these things on 
her birthday, particularly as Prince Henry of Batten- 
berg was expected to arrive. Perhaps we all hoped to 
see a little bit of a Royal courtship. Whether or not 
Cupid in crown and sceptre is more authoritative than 
when simply armed with bow and arrow has never 
been decided. But we were not gratified with a sight 
of the young lover. The Prince of Wales does not like 
this suitor of his Poyal sister, it is said ; but the Queen, 
with hereditary obstinacy, has decided that her darling 



318 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

shall marry the man of her choice. A very wise 
Queen. 

" The next expedition of the Queen and Princess was 
to that high mountain, the Chambottes, which looks over 
the lake and the surrounding country. The last stage 
of the journey up this mountain is made with the assist- 
ance of a donkey, or of a chaise a porteurs^hj those who 
cannot walk, but the Princess bounded over its stony 
walk like a chamois. 

" She was so delighted with the view and the primitive 
hotel on the top that she sent to the keeper of the house 
her portrait and autograph. The delighted Savoyard 
has a world of anecdote to tell of this visit of the gra- 
cious young ladv. 

" On a fine spring day, when the yellow kingcups cov- 
ered the earth like Danae's shower of gold, and the 
pretty grape hyacinths looked as royal as a queen's 
mantle, Prince Henry of Battenberg arrived." 

This was written in 1885 ; since then Beatrice has 
become a widow. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Letters from Spain— Barcelona and Tarragona — Roman, Carthaginian, 
and Moorish Antiquities — The Land of Don Quixote — Cordova 
and its Mosque — Granada and the Alhambra — Fair Seville — The 
Donkey in Spain. 

We entered Spain by the flowery road of Avignon 
and Xismes on May 18, 1889. Leaving Paris cold and 
dreary behind us, we found ourselves in the Land of 
Blossoms at Lyons. This long detour was necessary if 
we bought Cook's tickets, which, being a saving of -lO 
per cent., we were glad to do. Besides, it is in this cold, 
late spring by far the most agreeable way of entering 
Spain. I remember long ago talking with the poet 
Bryant about Spain, which he had often visited. " Avoid 
the sea-coasts and Madrid when it is cold. Go to Bar- 
celona, Tarragona, and Valencia first," was his wise 
advice, and I am very glad to have followed it, for we 
found the country a rapture of blossoms. Avignon, as a 
stopping-place, is something delightful, not only for the 
Boman remains, but for a sort of aroma of past and 
present, as if the ghosts of the old popes were blowing 
off their unused incense over the flower-laden fields. 
Petrarch and Laura still haunt these gardens. Rienzi, 
last of the tribunes, is still chained by the leg in yonder 
monastery tower. Avignon is a haunted town, but it 
has a neat and quaint hotel, hke the Peacock at Mat- 
lock. We passed also a day at Kismes, very fine; then 
to Perpignan, and so on to Barcelona. 



320 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

The railroad ride from Perpignan, with the Mediterra- 
nean on one side, the snowy Pyrenees on the other, is ex- 
ceedingly enjoj^able. There we saw fresh the wonderful 
crimson clover, in color like a Jacqueminot rose. Of all 
nature's carpets this is the most beautiful. Also the 
yellow lupine and the white spiraea, most elegant of wild 
flowers ; and a blue flower, which shall remain anony- 
mous because I do not know what it was. I only have 
the important information to give you that it was most 
beautiful, and as blue as heaven — 

"As blue as if the sky let fall 
A piece of its cerulean wall." 

Old stone ruins began to crop out, and we were aware 
that the Phoenicians and the Romans had been here be- 
fore us. The blossoming trees coquetted with these old 
stone walls, and the peaches blushed against them, as 
the Iberian maids may have done when the swarthy 
conquerors made love to them with their black eyes. 
It was an exquisite day. What a blessed change from 
cold, bleak, rainy Paris, which was never so disagree- 
able as it was this year ! To go south in the spring is 
to anticipate Paradise. 

Barcelona surprised us with its air of prosperity, move- 
ment, and grandeur. Splendid seaport, where Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella came to greet Columbus on his return 
from the New World. He stands there on his lofty 
pillar, does Columbus, looking over the sea and pointing 
to New York — the fine old undismayed creature, one of 
the world's heroes. And though our hearts had not 
swelled to the proper size, as though the lump were not 
big enough in the throat, who should come along but a 
party of Uncle Sam's sailors, riding in an omnibus and 
carrying a flag which looked very familiar, while the 



BARCELONA 321 

strains of the Star-spangled Banner greeted our ears ! 
It is an accident which may happen in any great sea- 
port, but it was uncommonly apt just then. Columbus 
was being serenaded by our hearts, our eyes, and our 
bands. The grand cathedral was of course our first 
pilgrimage. Here I saw the crucifix which Don John 
of Austria carried at the prow of his ship at the battle 
of Lepanto. The image is violently bent over to one 
side, as if to avoid the bullets. The grand Gothic pillars 
of immense height, the stained glass, the extent of this 
huge Gothic edifice, prepare us for greater wonders still 
farther on. It was first a pagan temple, then a mosque 
of the Moors, but became a Christian temple about 
1058, which seems to be the date of everything in 
Spain. 

Barcelona is the only city which I have seen with the 
sidewalks in the middle of the streets — that is to say, 
the people have the middle of the street for a broad 
promenade, while carriages and street -cars run at the 
side. ISo one can imagine how much prettier and more 
convenient this is. The Rambla, with its double row 
of fine trees sheltering this broad promenade, is one 
of the prettiest sights I ever saw. This is the great 
vein, or, rather, artery, of the city. Down its broad 
course runs the bluest blood of the city. The Parque 
is full of fine trees and flowering shrubs, fountains, and 
lakes. I noticed a richly gilt chariot of Yictory on top 
of an arch. General Prim, in stone, stands at the en- 
trance. The magnolias overhang an imposing cascade, 
and an avenue of palmetto palms leads up to the gate- 
way. A wide and handsome quay at the foot of the 
statue of Columbus darts out into the sea, making a 
lovely promenade. 

We drove to the fort of Monprich, a fortress of con- 

21 



333 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

siderable strength, which was, however, surprised and 
taken by Lord Peterborough in 1705. 

The view was magnificent. Not only the fine city, 
but the noble harbor, with its famous memories, lay 
at our feet. Barcelona is said to rank as a mercantile 
port only a little lower than Liverpool and Marseilles. 
Everywhere in the churches hangs the Saracen's head in 
stone, as if just cut off. This tribute to a defeated foe 
shows of how much importance he was. They are very 
interesting as bosses and corbels, though that stare of 
a recently beheaded man cannot be called altogether 
pleasing. I think if I had been taken to chu.rch in the 
cathedral in early youth I should have been frightened 
to death at them. The capitals in cloister and cathedral 
are well worthy of study. 

We left Barcelona with regret, to take a delightful 
journey to Tarragona. The country about Barcelona 
is extremely beautiful, and we bade farewell to these 
blood-red fields of clover, which reminded us of Hanni- 
bal and his father, Hamilcar Barca, who killed here 
three thousand people, more or less. During the Mid- 
dle Ages Barcelona was the lord of the Mediterranean. 
Trade has never been held to be a degradation by the 
Catalans, who are the Yankees of Spain, are wide-awake, 
prosperous, and industrious — very unlike those Spaniards 
farther south. 

Tarragona is, for Roman remains and Gothic archi- 
tecture, one of the most interesting places in Spain. We 
found here an excellent hotel (the Hotel de Paris), not 
an inevitable thing in Spain by any means. Here we 
went to see the cyclopean walls, enormous stones laid 
together by giants. Nobody knows what sort of human 
arms could have lifted these rocks. The Tarragonese 
claim Pontius Pilate as a townsman, and fondly show 



TARRAGONA 323 

his birthplace. They may have him, if they wish, and 
keep him too. 

The Cyclopean walls, ruin upon ruin, are intensely in- 
teresting — Carthaginian, Moorish, Eoman. They tell 
the story of three or four races, perhaps half a dozen. 
1 pleased myself by believing that some captive giant 
negroes, hungry and despairing, lifted these first stones 
into place. They look as if they might be the first bur- 
den the white man laid on those lonof-.sufferino^ shoulders. 
The drive about Tarragona, looking over these Roman 
towers to the Mediterranean, is superb. The cathedral, 
of a rich, yellow, sienna -looking marble, is one of the 
most interesting in Spain ; and its cloisters, with their 
priestly garden full of flowers and trees, are a museum 
of antiquity and a spot of unearthly perfection and 
beauty. The rounded arched double doorway, the cap- 
itals marvellously sculptured, the elegance of these 
Moorish arches and delicate shafts of marble, make a 
walk around this sweet spot an enchanting pleasure. I 
have seen no such cloisters elsewhere. Those in Rome 
of St. Paul's without the Walls come nearer to this de- 
lightful, this fabulous wealth of tracery and intricate 
carving than any other. 

Here we met the Tarragonese people — mothers with 
picturesque babies, looking like little Murillos ; beggars 
in the proverbial cloak ; young gallants, and pretty girls 
with handkerchiefs around their heads. The black 
Spanish eye, in all its phenomenal loveliness and sad- 
ness, is seen here. The women all look sad. Perhaps 
it is only a variety of beauty, however. 

We drove to the public square to hear some fine 
music. The soldiers w^ere all out, and, as the band 
struck up a gay waltz, a few senors and senoritas 
danced off, in a most Fanny Elssler manner, with a wild 



324 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

grace which was enchanting. Many of the women 
wear the mantilla. They are all picturesque, from the 
shepherd in the fields, who wears his striped plaid as if he 
were standing for his picture, to the lady on her balcony. 

It being Sunday and a feast-day, we saw the famous 
old tapestries for which the cathedral at Tarragona is 
celebrated. These are chiefly Flemish, and are said to 
have belonged before the Eeformation to St. Paul's, 
London. How they got here nobody knows. An Eng- 
lishman offered the bishop twenty thousand guineas 
for them, an offer indignantly refused. 

Ruins of the Eoman aqueduct, the ever-wonderful 
arches, the towers, all remain to testify to this city of 
the Scipios. It is a citadel surrounded by vineyards. 
These old Eomans loved the wine which rivalled the 
Falernian, and which still goes up to France to redden 
and enrich the clarets and Burgundies. Augustus raised 
this city to be the capital after his Cantabrian cam- 
paigns, and from this place, 26 e.g., he issued his decree 
closing the Temple of Janus forever. It was an imperial 
town. Conveniently situated for communication with 
Rome, this stronghold was the winter residence of the 
prsetor. We can imagine the gay, hardy Romans sail- 
ing across the Mediterranean to this their winter city. 
But it was taken by the Goths ; the Moors later made 
of it a heap of ruins, and these ruins remained undis- 
turbed for four centuries. Now to the antiquarian it is 
a sort of Pompeii. The wine business makes it a pros- 
perous town. Its harbor is full of coasting vessels. The 
wine is like sherry, to my taste not agreeable. The 
lighter vintages are sent to Bordeaux to fortify the 
claret, while the full-bodied varieties known as " Span- 
ish reds " are shipped to England and America under 
the name of port. 



THE LAND OF DON QUIXOTE 325 

Our ride to Yalencia was a long one. For some dis- 
tance out of Tarragona the scenery is dull, stony, and 
most uninteresting. The Mediterranean seemed inno- 
cent of a single sail, though always blue and beautiful. 
Here and there at a fishing village the scene was pretty, 
as the fishermen carry the nets on their heads in a pe- 
culiar manner ; but we began to believe that Spain could 
be the dry, arid, blasted heath which we had been pre- 
pared to think it before we saw Barcelona and Tarra- 
gona. 

But as the afternoon wore on we came " into a land 
where it was always afternoon " ; every breeze brought 
us the delightful perfume of orange-blossoms — groves 
upon groves and acre upon acre of orange-trees in full 
bloom, palm-trees, and flowers mingled with the white 
locust, which fell in clusters on the road. I^ow we 
knew we had reached the carefully irrigated fields of 
the Moors as we saw the trickling streams of water 
percolating through the meadows. Spain began to 
smile again, and to respond with fruit and flowers to 
the care and wisdom of her banished children, those in- 
telligent Moors. 

We reached Yalencia at nine o'clock, fatigued. Worn 
out with the creeping Spanish railway and the crowd of 
beggars about the station, we were glad to get to our 
hotel. The famous city of the Cid has an air of solid 
nobility. Its arched colonnades, narrow streets, fine 
plaza, open arcades, are thoroughly Spanish. 

We took the night train from Yalencia to Cordova, 
and were twenty-tw^o hours in penetrating from the 
coast to the interior, passing through the very land of 
Don Quixote. I got up at five o'clock to look out on 
the dreary plains of La Mancha, where Cervantes places 
Don Quixote. It is not in great cities that romantic 



326 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

visionaries dream dreams. It is in these melancholy 
wastes that Quixotes are possible. 

As I stated in a letter written at Seville, Spain, and 
dated May 18, 1889, the Mosque of Cordova is one of the 
most beautiful temples which exist, one of the most ad- 
mirable monuments of man's genius on the earth. We 
endeavored to take a drive around Cordova, but the roads 
have not been paved since the time of the Moor, so it was 
necessarily short. The once powerful city has dwindled 
to a dead-and-alive town of fifty thousand people, who 
still, however, have that air of decayed gentility which 
all Spanish cities keep. Their houses are pretty Moorish 
buildings amidst most lovely gardens. We went to see 
the old bridge dating from the times of Augustus, recon- 
,structed by the Arabs, and the ruined old walls, the 
debris of statues and bas-reliefs, the inscriptions in honor 
of the emperors, the gray old vestibules, the fairy-like 
balconies over which the handsome Andalusians leaned 
with flowers in their beautiful hair. It was all a dream, 
and Tom Moore, with his foolish ballads of the Guadal- 
quivir (the river flowing at our feet), came up with the 
eternal rhyme and the twanging of the guitar. Such 
are the confusions in one's archaeology for which Cor- 
dova is responsible. 

We came on to Granada the next afternoon. It is 
appropriate that the Mosque of Cordova and the mira- 
cle of the Alhambra, though twenty-four hours from 
everywhere else, should be within five hours of each 
other. The sensuous dream of luxury on earth, which 
the followers of the Prophet were to continue in heaven, 
could have no grander exploitation than the Alhambra. 

We had a dehghtful journe}^ The wild flowers and 
the orange-groves kept us company, and the old Span- 
ish towns grew more quaint and old, the stones grayer, 



THE BEAUTIES OF THE ALHAMBRA 327 

and the Sierra Nevada began to show us the snow : an 
outline not unlike Mont Blanc from Geneva rose on the 
rosy horizon. It became a vision of unearthly grandeur 
and beauty. When the evening fell, a moon, not yet 
quite full, helped to prolong the picture. 

As we entered Granada the beggars and cab-drivers, the 
cries of the Spanish gypsies, and the groans of the donkeys 
^nearly deafened us. Soon, however, we were driving 
by moonlight through the beautiful elm forest planted 
by the Duke of Wellington in 1812, and the nightin- 
gales were bursting their throats to give us the most 
delicate poultice for our wounded ears. You remember 
Doctor Holmes says : 

" And silence like a poultice came 
To Leal the wounds of sound." 

It is profanation to compare the exquisite and heart- 
breaking notes of the nightingale to a poultice, but it 
was infinitely soothing. This forest was a surprise to 
me. Why did nobody ever tell me that we had to 
drive through a forest to the Alhambra ? 

We alighted at the Washington Irving Hotel, where 
one can breakfast on a balcony overlooking a garden, 
where from one window we looked into the forest, and 
from another over a bank of yellow roses towards the 
Sierra Nevada. We never wished to go away. The 
Alhambra, approached through magnificent horseshoe 
arches, and opening its wonderful fountains, gardens, 
and fairy-like columns upon one, is at first a disappoint- 
ment, because it is in the process of being restored, and 
there is an air of newness about the Court of the Lions 
which dislocates one's dreams. 

But to go often, to go alone, to read, think, meditate 
there, to mount its towers, to dream in its courts, to 



dm AN" EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

read over Tales of the Alhatribra there — it grows and it 
grows, until it becomes the palace of the heart. 

The superb Hall of the Ambassadors, where Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella received Columbus, was the first 
majesty which overwhelmed me ; then the Court of 
the Lions. What a labyrinth of arches, carved embroi- 
deries ! what indefinable elegance ! what inimitable deli- 
cacy ! what a prodigious richness ! Something so airy, 
so undulating, a curtain of lace, which a breath could 
blow away, but which has stood seven hundred years ; 
a delightful confusion, a graceful disorder, the majesty 
of a royal palace and the gayety of a kiosk, an extrav- 
agance, a delight, a living grace, a folly, a fancy, the 
dream of an angel, the rosy visions of first love, some- 
thing too evanescent to describe — such is the effect of 
the Alhambra. 

The long Arabic inscriptions on the walls are most 
graceful. I had a book which pretended to translate 
them, and a copy of the Koran sold at Granada, but 
I could not make them out, and feel as Artemus Ward 
did about Chaucer. " Mr. C," said he — " Mr. C. was a 
smart man, a man of talent, but he was the poorest 
speller I ever met." 

Somebody was a poor speller — either my book, or the 
Koran, or the sculptor. I cannot read Arabic yet, more's 
the pity. But why regret anything but the shortness 
of life and the flight of time when looking at these 
floating ribbons, these flowery niches, arabesques, stars, 
the delicate infinity of the ever - recurring polygonal 
and checkered kaleidoscope patterns, the stalactites and 
pendulous graces of the ceilings, the dewdrops in stone 
ready to fall, the stucco lace embroidered with a thou- 
sand flowers? The fairy-like columns advance and dis- 
appear. Looking upward one sees the replica of the 



THE HOME OF MYSTEEY AND ENCHANTMENT 329 

court below in a palace high in air. From behind those 
grated windows the dark-eyed houris looked and sighed, 
perhaps, for freedom. 

We mounted a high tower to the dressing-room of 
the Sultana. From this immense height the unhappy 
mother of Boabdil let down her little boy in a scarf, 
tying all her shawls together, to save him from the 
revengeful hate of her rival. The room is still rich 
with a subtile perfume. Farther on we see a gloomy 
perspective : it is where a mad woman was incarcerated. 

They say if you whisper in the ear of one of the lions 
one can hear what you say from the mouth of another ! 
What an oral love - letter might thus be spoken ! The 
Alhambra is the home of mystery and enchantment, 
and his lion guards only ruin. 

"An old gray lion, yet not the less 
A lion in bis feebleness ! 

One thing is left him still to guard. 
He guards it well, by day or night, 
With these great paws of granite gray ; 

In the strong shelter of his breast, 
No man shall serve him yet with scorn, 
Though an old lion, thus forlorn, 

For what he guards is Beauty's rest." 

After the Salle of the Abencerrages we went to see 
the baths. These beautiful rooms were restored with 
taste during Charles Y.'s reign, and still bear their 
sumptuous testimony to the wise luxury and cleanli- 
ness of the Moor, a virtue in which he has not been 
followed by the Spaniard. We came out in the lovely 
Court of Myrtles, and looked in the tranquil cistern full 
of gold-fishes. We went in to write our names in the 
visitors' book. 

The custodian showed us first Washington Irving and 



330 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

then General Grant and family ; then General Sherman 
and Colonel Fred Grant ; then the name of Albert Ed- 
ward and his faithful friend and tutor General Bruce ; 
then, later on, the evil -fated autograph of the poor 
Prince Kudolph of Austria, that of the Countess of 
Pierrefond (the Empress Eugenie), of the late King of 
Spain and of his Royal sisters, and many others of lesser 
degree. 

I suppose I am not the first chronicler to say that 
Seville is a most charming city. It beams on one who 
comes from the rural districts of Spain as Paris beams 
on the early American before he becomes satiated with 
foreign travel. Although it has nothing to compare 
with the Alhambra or the Mosque of Cordova, Seville 
still has its antiquities, Roman remains, and Moorish 
palaces ; its grandest of cathedrals, the beautiful mod- 
ern palace of the Duke de Montpensier (now a gray- 
haired old veteran and a thorough Spaniard), the beau- 
tiful Giralda Tower — enough to come to Spain to see — 
and the Alcazar, now the only home and Spanish palace 
of Queen Isabella. It is full of family portraits, and 
with its fountains, gardens, and restored Moorish rooms 
is no bad copy of the Alhambra, but still a copy and 
not the original. 

"We started off well for modern ideas by hearing our 
countrywoman, Emma Nevada, sing in El Barbero de 
Sevilla at the Opera-house. The pretty little woman, 
with her flute-like voice, is a tremendous favorite here. 
They recalled her sixteen times, and poured out flowers 
upon her until she could not walk across the stage. She 
had been singing two months at Madrid, where she made 
an essential furore ; had an audience with the Queen ; 
and is a great friend of Count Murphy, who has given 
her an open sesame to all the places here not usually 



THE LIBRARY OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 331 

shown to visitors. I owe much to her friendship in 
opening them to me. 

But it was a great pleasure to see the " Barber " on 
his native soil. Around me sat the flower of Andalusian 
beauty and grace, the nobility of Seville. Every wom- 
an's hair was dressed with flowers, and the famous great 
carnations, as large as the double poppy, were in every 
hand. This superb flower will not grow so large 
anywhere as here. A caballero sent me a bouquet in 
which I counted sixteen varieties. 

We have had some very amusing encounters with 
these Sevillians. I brought several letters, and it is an 
awful moment when a haughty Don arrives to make a 
call. We can none of us speak Spanish, and they speak 
no French ; so the courier has to be invoked, and the 
high and mighty compliments which follow on both 
sides are exchanged through his mediation. The Don 
offers up his house, his opera-box, all that is his. We 
accept nothing but a " permission to call," and, perhaps, 
" would he open some doors." 

I owe to such a visit from a distinguished scholar per- 
mission to see the library of Christopher Columbus, now 
closed. One thing they do not do, they do not ask you 
to dinner. Ko one gets very often inside their houses. 
Sir Clare Ford, at Madrid, says he asks them to dinner, 
but they never ask him. They send you a carriage, 
they are polite, but inside their houses, no ! 

I trust that at Madrid we may have the entree to 
some of these Spanish interiors so jealously guarded. 
The hotel at Seville (Hotel de Paris) is excellent. The 
weather is just now very hot, but we easily fall into 
their habits of the siesta at one o'clock. We rise early 
and see the sights, return home and have breakfast, and 
dine late. We are never tired of these pretty houses 



332 AN EriSTLE TO POSTERITY 

built round a garden at which we get peeps through the 
iron lattice-work. The shops are dark, cool caverns 
filled with most tempting laces, fans, and Spanish wools. 
There is also a beautiful pottery here. The windows 
are shutterless, protected by iron gratings and an awn- 
ing. We are here at the best of seasons, the spring, 
and we enjoy a full moon by which we dine late, hear- 
ing the mandolin and guitar. A moonlit night in Se- 
ville is a love-song all by itself. These open, square 
courtyards called patios are surrounded by corridors, 
supported by marble pillars, with a fountain playing 
in the middle. They are covered in midday by an awn- 
ing, called toldo^ and constitute the drawing-room of the 
family. I know of nothing so pretty. To go back to an- 
tiquity, Abdul Yakub was the greatest builder of his 
age, and in 1171 he threw a bridge of boats across the 
Guadalquivir ; he repaired the Roman Aqueduct and 
raised the great mosque (now the cathedral, and under- 
going repairs). To him we owe the beautiful Giralda 
Tower, very suggestive of the Campanile at Florence. 
This is the great tower where in Moorish times the 
muezzin called the faithful to prayers. IS'ow certain 
famous bells perform his office. They are so powerful 
that even the devil is afraid of them, and Murillo was 
fond of painting the scene where the devil and his 
winds were dispersed by the bells. Would that we 
had an agency so effectual to dispel a blizzard or a 
cyclone ! 

It would be a week's work to describe the cathedral, 
its wealth of beauty, its superb size, its endless arches. 
It is the largest thing in the world apparently. I did 
not see it to advantage, and therefore have not so pleas- 
ing a remembrance of it as of its rivals at Barcelona or 
Tarragona. It cannot compare with the Mosque of Cor- 



333 

dova ; but it has two beautiful Murillos in it which I 
can praise — " The Guardian Angel " and the " Saint An- 
thony of Padua." This saint has been to New York, it 
will be remembered. He was cut out by one of his own 
priests, sent to Mr. Schaus, who detected whence and 
where he belonged, and sent him back. The restoration 
is skilfully done, and it is a.n unrivalled specimen of the 
master. 

I preferred to go and rest in the lovely Cinquecento 
gardens of the Alcazar, where the beautiful Maria de 
Padilla bathed the forehead and soothed the savage 
temper of Pedro the Cruel until she was accused of 
magic. In this palace of the Alcazar Charles Y. was 
married, and at his order arose these labyrinths of box 
in the style of the Italian renaissance, these orange- 
groves, this thicket of roses. 

I have often asked myself how I should feel if I were 
to be in the home of Murillo and Yelasquez. Here I 
am on the very spot, and I see whence they drew their 
inspiration. Murillo had but to look around him to be- 
hold the splendid black-eyed babies and the beautiful 
Andalusian Madonnas. Neither look as if they knew 
anything. For of beggar boys the supply is limitless. 
The beggars and the donkeys in Spain ! 

I am inclined to write a book and call it The Donkey 
in Spain. Nothing but the fear that some wit would 
ask me if it were intended for an autobiography has 
deterred me. But that patient little beast does all the 
w^ork. He is buried under two panniers, and he is laden 
down with everything. No refuge has he but his patient 
cry and his discordant note. The voice of protest in all 
the world has been discordant. It finishes off with the 
donkey. In this miserably poor, enormously rich coun- 
try he seems to be the emblem of what has ruined Spain 



334 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

— oppression and taxation ; this country which has been 
ruined by bad government, but is so beautiful and strange. 

I enjoyed very much the Palace of St. Telmo, the 
beautiful house of the Due de Montpensier. Here I 
saw two of the best of Yelasquez — portraits of Philip 
lY. and of Olivarez ; also some poor Murillos, and the 
original of Ary Scheffer's " St. Monica and St. Augus- 
tine"; splendid examples of Zubaran and other Spanish 
painters ; also a curious series of pictures from Don Quix- 
ote^ embroidered in silk by a man, very original, humor- 
ous, and quaint. The Duke must be a student of Cer- 
vantes, for he has statuettes of the Don and of Sancho 
Panza everywhere. Sancho was a famous name among 
the old kings, so Sancho Panza is equivalent to our say- 
ing " Washington Briggs." The house is full of records 
of the Orleans family, including a very fine full-length 
of Philippe Egalite, the Duke's infamous grandfather. 
The Queen Isabella II., his sister-in-law, is also por- 
trayed, but we saw no likeness of his dear little daughter 
Mercedes, Queen of Spain, whose death, they say, broke 
his heart. 

Across the Paseo de Cristina we came to the old 
Moorish tower of the Tomo del Oro. No one knows 
whether this was a lighthouse or a treasure-house, per- 
haps both, as its octagon shape and high lantern would 
make it useful in either capacity. Pedro the Cruel, the 
Henry YIIL of Spain, used it for a prison in which he 
punished his false wives. 

This is the home of the bull-fights, but, alas for us ! 
there will be none until we reach Madrid. So our cruel 
instincts must wait a week. For us the Plaza de Toros 
of Seville is a lost delight. Its capacity to seat twelve 
thousand spectators, its view of the Giralda — all is lost 
for us. The effect is said to be very grand as the last 



335 

bull dies ! (I do not know that I am inconsolable ; one 
must miss something in any country ! I rather hope 
there will be no bull- fights in Madrid, if it be not trea- 
son to say so.) 

To one who comes here to welcome poetical impres- 
sions and day-dreams, Seville is the most satisfactory 
town in Spain. It is still the city of the most pictu- 
resque blackguards in Spain, who sleep on the steps, 
wear their shawls and cloaks with a grace which is 
proverbial — pictures of the bliss of idleness; a great 
argument in favor of being entirely worthless. They 
have no vulgar prejudices as to duty and honesty, but 
are very good guitar - players. 'No grave, solemn, sad 
Spanish type is this, but a mixture of the gypsy, the 
bull-fighter, and the contrabandist. E"one of your jeal- 
ous, haughty, suspicious, and dignified cavaliers among 
these beggars. It is the city of pleasure. The "Bar- 
ber" is its true expletive. Rossini's march exactly ex- 
presses it. The upper classes, however, are distinguished- 
looking and very handsome, the men especially — a high 
type of Spaniard, well dressed, riding well-groomed horses. 
The turnouts at the fashionable drive are worthy of Rot- 
ten Row. The women wear the beautiful mantilla. In 
many cases it is becoming, and, being local, should always 
supplant Paris bonnets. 

But it is not to the upper class (as much at home in 
Paris as in Seville) that one looks for the true Spanish 
type. At the tobacco factory, in the streets, we have 
seen some fine specimens of Andalusian beauty. The 
deep, large, full black eye, the raven hair in such mag- 
nificent profusion, that indescribable charm and natural- 
ness, grace, liveliness, and repartee which painters, poets, 
and opera-writers have sought to reproduce, are to be 
seen on every corner. Byron made Cadiz to rhyme 



336 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

with ladies. He and Tom Moore both found some en- 
chantress here, no doubt. 

JS'o wonder the Moslem loved to linger by the Guadal- 
quivir, to dream away his life amid the enchantments of 
refined taste, with all of ISTature's profuse and prodigal 
gifts of climate and production. He lavished his gold 
and genius to adorn his city. He gave freely of his 
blood to defend it. 

"Fair is proud Seville! Let her country boast 
Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days." 

Later on Seville became the court of Spanish kings, 
and is linked with their romantic and most cruel records. 
The discovery of America, by making it the emporium 
of the world, revived its former prosperity. From its 
port of Palos sailed Columbus, Pizarro, and Cortez. In 
the fifteenth century it was the home of the merchant 
princes. It was the ISTew York of Spain. It became 
the prey of the French in 1808. Marshal Soult carried 
off the Murillos — in fact, tore it in pieces. The English 
entered it in 1813 amid universal acclamations. 

The Spanish proverb says : He who has seen Seville 
has seen wonders; but he who has not seen Granada 
has seen nothing." 

It is difficult now to know why they so adored Gra- 
nada. Beautiful as is the Alhambra, splendid as is the 
view of the Sierra Nevada, it is not as attractive as is 
this flower-fringed, cheerful city. The lightness, the 
elegance, the vivacity, the show, the thousand things to 
see here, make it the prettiest and most peaceful picture 
we have 3^et seen. To-day is the Queen's birthday, and 
the houses are all decked with her picture. 

She is the Madonna of the day, the ever-present, ever- 
worshipped Murillo, the immortal type of the most per- 



THE GREAT KING BABY 337 

feet love. A mother and her baby rule Spain ; and the 
baby hand holds the sceptre with an invincible strength. 
One of the editors of the Figaro gave me a letter to a 
high official, so that in Madrid I should see the Queen. 

" Yes," said he, " but I know you, being a woman, 
Avant to see the baby." 

I acknowledged that the Majesty of " two years and a 
half " was to me more interesting than any other, and 
that I was willing to put my neck under his darling 
foot. That sovereignty fresh from heaven, the great 
rule of King Baby, who does not kiss his chubby hand ? 
He rules the court, the politician, and the Liberal. 

'' I cannot war against a woman and a baby," said 
Castelar. 

That baby is now a fine lad of ten years or more. He 
was always brave and kingly. Falling down and hurting 
himself at three j^ears of age, his governess said, ^' Why 
does not your Majesty cry ?" 

" Oh," said he, scornfully, " kings never cry." 

I hope he may go out of life, at a good old age, with- 
out wanting to cry. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Letters from Spain to Friends at Home — Further Thoughts of 
Madrid — At the Bull -fight — Toledo, the Majestic Crown of 
Spain — The Cathedral and Its Memories — Moorish Houses and 
Toledo Blades— The Escorial— The Library— The Pantheon- 
Burgos and Farewell to Spain. 

Madrid, May 23, 1889. 

I CANNOT quit the very delightful subject of Seville 
without mentioning the visit which I paid to the library 
of Columbus. I am ashamed to say that what was 
denied to Edward Everett Hale, as I read in his lovely 
book, Seven Spanish Cities, was granted to me — that 
is, a view of the original letters of Columbus, his map 
drawn with his own hand, and wet with sea- water and 
perhaps with his tears ; also the priceless manuscripts 
of the library bought by Fernando Columbus and given 
by him to the city of Seville. 

It is only another proof that the battle is not to the 
strong or the race to the swift. That the great Boston 
scholar should have been denied this privilege, he the 
nephew of Edward and Alexander Everett, who enabled 
Washington Irving to write the Life of Columbus ; 
he who has a proprietary right to these manuscripts — 
that he should not have seen them, and that I should, is 
one of those wrongs which are irretrievable. I had the 
open sesame of a letter of introduction with a noble- 
man's name. Let no one travel in Spain without this 
golden key. The same golden key took me to the upper 
rooms of the Alcazar and to the Duke de Montpensier's 



CIGAR ROLLERS AT SEVILLE 339 

palace, a most delightful place. But it takes no golden 
key to open the tobacco factory. The delightful voice 
of Emma Nevada did that for me. We arrived at the 
factory and were refused admittance. " Tell them Mme. 
Nevada has no other chance," said her husband, "as 
she has been singing Seville off its feet in the BarberP 
That immediately brought down the governor, and we 
were shown that immense industry — six thousand women 
rolling cigarettes and cigars. These poor things, often 
under fourteen, are, some of them, accompanied by a baby 
and a cradle. 

One pretty young creature, not more than fifteen, 
had a baby as beautiful as any of Murillo's, and she was 
so proud of him that she had made for him a pillow of 
the splendid carnations of which Spain is so proud. No 
Royal duke ever had a more imperial one. This poor 
child of sin and shame is cared for as if born in the pur- 
ple. The excellent governor told me that by allowing 
these girls to bring their children they hoped to prevent 
matricide. The mothers earn a franc and a half a day. 
There is also a creche where these mothers who wish to 
get rid of their children can drop them in a revolving 
basket and lose sight of them forever. I went to see 
those dear sisters, whose motto is, "These children of 
sin are sinless ; we will make them good Christians for 
the Lord — good soldiers for the King," and I have never 
seen an infant asylum cleaner or more attractive. 

Indeed, on this vexed question I consider Seville vast- 
ly ahead of America. 

We came through to Madrid by night. It is an unin- 
teresting journey by day, I hear. We arrived at Ma- 
drid in the morning, to be disappointed in its general 
architecture. It is not a Spanish city in the least. Its 
chief attractions are the Bueno Eetiro, a beautiful park. 



340 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

These recollections of Spain, written on the spot to 
friends at home, necessarily grew confused and repe- 
titious. 

Another beautiful drive. El Prado, ending in the 
Paseo Castellano, is ornamented with a beautiful statue 
of Isabella the Catholic. Ferdinand holds her bridle 
rein as she sits on horseback — the old Cardinal Ximenes 
stands by her side. It is a pretty modern statue. 

Along the Paseo Castellano are the fine palaces and 
gardens of the grandees of Spain. This promenade was 
founded by Espartero, the favorite minister of Queen 
Isabella. It is the patrician street of Madrid. We 
drove also around the palace and the square of the 
Opera, where is the famous statue of Philip lY., the 
whole resting on the horse's hind-legs. The tradition 
is that Galileo told them to weight the tail of the horse 
with lead, and that keeps the horse eternally rearing. 
It is ver}^ wonderful in its way. 

The Royal Palace at Madrid is certainly a magnifi- 
cent Poyal residence, both without and within — espe- 
cially within. Its marbles and gildings, its rooms in 
every style, especially the throne room, which has 
chandeliers of rock crystal and colossal looking-glasses, 
are very fine. Then there are marbles galore, crim- 
son hangings, coats of arms, and ceilings painted in 
illustration of the virtues of kings and the virtues of 
subjects, where the costumes of the people are repre- 
sented. Then comes a splendid gabinete fitted up with 
china. This was all made by the artists whom Charles 
II. brought with him from ISTaples from the manu- 
factory of Capo di Monte. The large winged figures 
offer the most splendid examples of this now lost art 
that at present exist in the world. 

The view from the palace windows is splendid but 



THE GREAT PICTUEE-GALLERY 341 

dreary, l^o tasteful Moor has irrigated the land or 
planted trees, flowers, and fountains. There is no gush 
of running water, as at the Alhambra. The Manzanares, 
a most uninteresting stream, runs through the arid land- 
scape, and the mountains are harsh and ugly. 

We have seen the Queen, who, with her two little 
daughters and her Eoyal son, inhabits this most regal 
house and lights it up with love and maternity. She 
is, indeed, a charming, unpretending, and most gracious 
Koyal ladj^ 

The great gallery is a reason in itself for coming to 
Madrid. The Yelasquezes and Murillos have been so 
often described that there is nothing for me to say ex- 
cept that they are peerless. 

This is considered one of the richest galleries in the 
world, and is presided over by Don Pedro Madrazo, the 
famous father of a now famous son, the portrait-painter 
in Paris. This learned man has published a catalogue, 
in tw^o volumes, which is a history of painting in it- 
self. It contains the history of the painters and their 
works. This museum is a really fine building on the 
Paseo del Prado. Within, the arrangements are most 
admirable. 

'No collection of pictures was ever made under great- 
er advantages. Charles Y. and Philip II. were true con- 
noisseurs, and happened to be in power during the bright 
period of the Kenaissance, when " art was a necessity." 
Then Philip lY., a most true lover of art, ruled in iSTaples 
and the Low Countries w^hile the second glorious pe- 
riod of art was at its highest. He collected pictures 
and honored artists. All these kings were devoted 
friends of the artists, invited them to their tables and 
decorated them. Yelasquez and Eubens w^ere guests 
at the palace. The viceroys of Spain collected the gems 



342 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

from the Low Countries and from Italy, and the finest 
specimens of Kaphael, Titian, Tintoretto, Vandyke, Paul 
Veronese, Eubens, and Teniers may be seen here. Imag- 
ine a gallery in which there are sixty -two examples of 
Velasquez. It is only here that the masterpieces of this 
master can be studied and understood. There are forty- 
six of Murillo's greatest masterpieces. 

One is swamped in such a gallery. The only way is 
to give a week to it ; do it patiently, go often, come 
away when too tired to look further, and then to jump 
out of the window and commit suicide, having not half 
seen it. 

We are amused at some of our countrywomen, who 
walk around for half an hour, and, swinging their para- 
sols at a picture, say, " That's pretty " ; " I^ow I have 
seen it all" ; "Let's go home to breakfast"; "I don't like 
this gallery half as well as the one in Russia" ; " There, 
I declare, I don't want to see any more " ; and so on. 

The art collection founded by Charles V. is said to be 
the finest in the world. The titanic blade of Gonsalvo 
Hernandez de Cordova, Isabella's " Gran Capitan " ; a 
magnificent sword of Philip 11. ; the sword of Charles 
v., made by John of Toledo ; the Florentine armor 
of the great Duke of Alva; the helmet and shield of 
Francis L, found after the battle of Pa via ; gold votive 
crowns ; real crowns and shields ; whole suits of armor, 
including one worn by Isabella the Catholic, down to 
one worn by the latest man who wore armor — all are 
preserved here most carefully. It is a splendid da3^'s 
work to see this treasure-house of history, and these 
really beautiful and valuable things are in themselves 
most wonderful. 

These king-collectors of Spain were consummate art 
critics. They have never been surpassed. 



THE BULL-FIGHT 343 

The Church of San Francisco el Grande is, perhaps, 
the most worthy of a visit as a curious and beautiful 
church. But Madrid is too modern for churches. It is 
a sad contrast to Granada, the Alhambra, to the Mosque 
of Cordova, Seville and its cathedral. Indeed, it has no 
claims peculiarly Spanish. It is, however, gay, metro- 
politan, and full of handsome shops. It is the capital 
city, and that is always worth seeing. 

We leave, however, for the greater glories of Toledo 
and of the Escorial, and shall then quit Spain after five 
weeks of enjoyment of its glories and its local coloring. 

The weather has become very hot; the only cool 
places are inside these great marble buildings or within 
the English embassy, where Sir Clare Ford entertained 
us at lunch. We are on the Puerta del Sol, the centre 
of the town, from which all the streets radiate, and we 
are every evening amused by the most vivacious crowd, 
who shout, laugh, and sing late into the night. Some- 
times we see a gay group of soldiers, whose martial 
music enlivens the morning air. These soldiers wear the 
regular Koman sandal, and it looks strange enough 
with their black and red coats and sometimes their 
German helmets. However, thej^ are good soldiers and 
fight well. 

No one has seen Spain who has not witnessed a bull- 
fight. It is the successor to the Olympic games of 
Greece, or the more cruel gladiatorial contests in the 
Coliseum when human beings fought with wild animals ; 
so when the placards announced a magnificent " Festa 
de Toros " I sent my courier to the Puerta d' Alcala to 
buy tickets. As we drove to the Plaza de los Toros 
all Madrid seemed going with us, anxiety and impa- 
tience depicted on their countenances. Business, pleas- 
ure, and religion were forgotten. It was Sunday after- 



344 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

noon, and prince and peasant, gay lady, young girls, 
children, master and servant, were all directed towards 
the spot in which centres the Spaniard's chief delight. 
Vehicles, horses and mules, all with gay trappings, an- 
nounced a national holiday. 

We were soon inside the immense circus, over three 
hundred feet in diameter, surrounded by a strong bar- 
rier paling six feet in height. Behind one enclosure 
bulls were bellowing ominously. Our seats were in a box 
near that of the Governor and the Koyal box, which was 
empty, but gorgeously adorned with velvet hangings 
and the Royal lion of Spain. The boxes of the court and 
the ambassadors were roofed in and gayly ornamented 
with silk and gold embroideries, filled with beautiful 
women, many with the white mantilla, and accompanied 
by cavaliers in gay uniforms ; also dignified priests in sac- 
erdotal habits. It was a magnificent sight. Soon one of 
the four great barred gates was thrown open and a splen- 
did procession entered. Men on horseback carrying 
spears were preceded by two standard-bearers on mules ; 
heralds announcing by flourish of trumpets the pica- 
dors, stacadores, banderilleros, and matadors. These last, 
gorgeously dressed, were loudly cheered ; and they de- 
served it, for they were the handsomest creatures I had 
ever seen. 

After this really splendid procession had passed twice, 
the matadors walked alone to the Governor's box, say- 
ing something equivalent to 

"We who are about to die salute thee." 

Then the herald demanded the key which should release 
the bull. 

An instant clearing of the vast arena, and a solemn 
silence followed, and only the great matador Fras- 



THE INJUSTICE OF THE BULL-FIGHT 345 

cuelo, the champion, stood alone, waving his scarlet 
shawl. 

Then the door was unlocked and the bull rushed out. 
Although he seemed a wild image of strength, I de- 
clare I pitied him, he looked so surprised at that un- 
wonted spectacle. The almost childish expression in 
those unawakened eyes, that had but just now looked 
on Andalusian meadows, was most pathetic. But soon his 
calmness gave way to fury ; he spurned the ground with 
his hoofs, threw the dust in the air with his horns, and 
the sound of the trumpet and the entrance of a crowd 
of stacadores, waving their shawls at him, roused his in- 
discriminate rage, and he tore to shreds the shawls they 
left behind them in their flight. 

Then Frascuelo with genuine courage approached 
him and planted an arrow in his neck. The fury of 
the tortured animal became intense. 

The picadors now entered with horses. Poor beasts ! 
we had to see them gored — a horrible and bloody sight. 
The valor of the wounded horses now excited the plau- 
dits of the multitude; they seemed to enter into the 
spirit of the scene. With lighted arrows burning in his 
back, the poor bull rushed upon a stacador, who threw 
his shawl over his head, and with agility and skill gave 
him another arrow. 

After a terrible scene of cruel injustice and unfair 
play, in which forty or fift}^ tormentors exasperated his 
fury, and six horses were killed, the scene was left to 
the bull and Frascuelo, who now stood with a green 
shawl thrown over his arm, a perfect picture of slender 
beauty and grace. The bull had been wildly foaming 
w^ith rage and suffering, but now he became stationary, 
and glared silently at the brilliant figure of his daring 
antagonist. I declare this was exciting, as the matador 



346 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

met that fiery glance with the steady and determined 
gaze of undaunted intrepidity. 

Several minutes seemed to be passed in this suspense. 
When the matador advanced and waved his green man- 
tle, the bull jumped, to be repulsed by his sword. 
This contest went on silently for several minutes. The 
paralysis of death was on the poor animal ; he staggered, 
and the trumpets sounded just before he fell. Frascuelo 
tempted him to one more leap, and then planted his 
dagger between the horns, the head, and neck. The 
bull looked at him with reproachful eyes, staggered, and 
fell on the earth, which was red with his blood. 

I was so sick and faint, so overcome at the brutality 
of this fiendish sport, that I hardly heard the shouts of 
" Bravo ! bravo !" and the fanfaronade of trumpets. As 
through a mist, I saw women throw flowers and rings and 
chaplets at Frascuelo, and he was carried off a hero. I 
saw them chain the horns of the dead bull, together with 
the wounded horses, and drag them off. Four mules 
abreast, gayly caparisoned, made it a sort of procession. 
I do not know which astonished me most, the strikingly 
curious, brilliant coujp d^oeil, the dexterity of the men, 
the intrepidity of the animals, the miserable unfair play, 
or the pleasure of the spectators. 

" Madame will stay to see the next bull killed — a beau- 
tiful creature V asked my courier, who had enjoyed it, 
immensely. 

" Ko," said I, " get us out of this as soon as possible." 

We three women were faint and dizzy, and we all 
saw blood wherever we looked for the rest of the day. 

The matadors are the heroes of Spain. They go from 
city to city followed by a troop of admirers. They 
grow very rich. Their portraits are everywhere and I 
brought home a tambourine with Frascuelo's handsome 



THE STREETS OF TOLEDO 347 

face on it. They are splendidly dressed in that costume 
with which the opera of Carmen has made us familiar. 
Of perfect athletic figure, although small men, they 
present the superiority of human reason over brute force. 
But how cruel, inhuman, and degrading is the spectacle 
of such misplaced courage ! " Butchered to make a 
Koman holiday," I thought, as I looked at the bull. 

Toledo, Spain, Junel, 1889. 

Toledo is the most picturesque place in Spain, and 
has the worst hotels and the steepest of streets. We 
were precipitated down a mountain torrent, or the dry 
bed of one, in a curious mixture of omnibus, jaunting- 
car, and furniture van, around which hung calico cur- 
tains, ragged as the '' hair of Hecuba," the same being 
drawn by a mule and a horse, tied in with ropes and 
" exhorted " by a Spaniard with a long whip and a 
voluminous vocabulary. My friend, who has more 
nerve than I have, had looked out of the furniture van, 
and had said, resignedly, " One man is holding the pole 
of the carriage, two more are holding the mule and the 
horse. We cannot escape immediate destruction." 

I closed my eyes and said a prayer, awaiting instant 
death, Tvhen we stopped all right in a sort of triangular 
square, if there is such a figure in geometry, and found 
that this was an every-day drive in this town of memo- 
ries. Instead of a triangular square, perhaps I should 
call this little place " Puerta." It is about as large as 
half a pocket-handkerchief, and would have been square 
only an impertinent house came walking down into it 
and spoiled its shape. This house we called the home 
of Juliet, it was so pretty and made Romeo so practi- 
cable. There was the window, and the balcony, and 
some cooing doves in a box on the iron balustrade. It 



348 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

is all out of the scenery of a theatre — Toledo. When I 
was introduced to my apartment (if a cell in the wall, 
with a hole to admit the air, can be so dignified) I 
leaned out of my windou^ (?) and reached my parasol 
across to Juliet's window and the cooing doves. It just 
made a convenient bridge for a dove or a love-letter. 

Presently we were summoned to supper and sent 
over brick floors, which were laid by the Yisigoths, up 
a strange staircase of brick and lath to a room with 
Moorish tiles, where we had some very good omelet 
and some potted pigeons, perhaps some of the doves. 
Our courier made us some excellent tea. After ascend- 
ing, or descending (which was it ?), to our bedrooms 
again we uttered a feeble cry for hot water. We were 
told the fire was out ! Yet the poor, dear little birdlike 
sisters made up their fire again, and we each had a hot 
bath brought in beautiful old Moorish tubs, which were 
so handsome that, but for their size, and what in I^ew 
England would be called their heft, we should have 
tried to bring them back with us to 'Ne\Y York. The 
beds were perfectly clean, and we soon slept the sleep 
of the weary. In the morning the sociable grosbeaks, 
as we called the birdlike sisters, brought us some more 
hot water, and, what was rarer, some cold water, and 
Ave got a good breakfast — more doves and more omelets 
— and went out to see the town in the same jaunting-car, 
with the mule and the horse and minus the crazy " hair 
of Hecuba " covering. Toledo boasts a beautiful, grand 
situation, like Edinburgh — a congestion of ruins, as if 
all the warlike tribes since Iberia was a Roman colony 
had each thrown a stone on the cairn. Toledo for 
majesty and beauty is the crown of Spain. What a 
lordly situation ! Built on a high rock, sloping to the 
Tagus — " the throne of Hercules," by whom the legends 



THE ARCHBISHOPS OF TOLEDO 349 

say it was built. Toledo, with its sombre-looking edi- 
fices, spreading terrace wise, is worthy of the Goth, the 
Jew, the Moor who loved it ; better still, worthy of the 
eagle eye of Charles Y., who, when master of the world, 
swept the space between him and India in search of new 
worlds to conquer. It is the seat of grandeur and 
pride, massiveness and dominion. It is a rock -built 
aery, crowned by all that man can do, and its ruins say : 

" Ye build ! ye build ! but ye enter not in." 

Its steepleless churches, dilapidated walls, most beau- 
tiful bridges, and Moorish palaces — well may it recall 
the poetry of the Moor, Avho says of her : " She is, in- 
deed, the city of delights. God has lavished on her 
all sorts of beauties. He has given her walls for a tur- 
ban, a river for her girdle, and the branches of trees for 
stars." 

ISTow she is the " Pompeii of Spain '' — only a museum. 
The inhabitants seem to be taking a siesta after four 
centuries of warlike activity. It is very fortunate for 
the lover of the picturesque that Toledo was deserted 
by Charles and Philip (both crazy men), and that they 
left her Gothic and Saracenic walls to speak for them- 
selves of that period of almost unearthly beauty, when 
the gay fancy of the Moor illuminated the more gloomy 
but solid picturesqueness of the Goths. 

Toledo has always been the great church power of 
Spain. It is to-day. The archiepiscopal see of Ma- 
drid, Cordova, Jerez, Carthagena, Cuenca, Siguenza, 
Segovia, Osuna, and Yalladolid — all bow the knee to this 
great prelacy. In the sixteenth century the Archbishops 
of Toledo, men of immense learning, boundless wealth, 
were a race of mitred kings. Here lived and ruled 
Ximenes, who held the key to the beautiful conscience of 



350 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

Isabella the Catholic, and turned it the wrong way oc- 
casionally. Here lived Mendoza, maker of kings. Here 
the Primate of all Spain, by ruling his master's con- 
science, ruled the world. Here lived Pedro the Cruel, 
afraid of his own life, having killed so many people, 
and ruled by his wife, Maria de Padilla, whom he loved 
Avell, " so fair she was." Here these great churchmen 
headed armies and won battles, founded universities, 
colleges, and libraries. They were as great in the arts 
of war as in the arts of peace. They drew up charts 
and codes which we use to-day. I declare it was a 
glorious age! These walls tell the story — how can 
they be so ruinous to-day ? Here was born that unfort- 
unate creature, Juana la Loca, that mad daughter of 
the serene Isabella, whose fantastic love for her ruthless 
Philip le Bel has made her story so pathetic. Insanity 
seems not uncommon in Spain. Prescott, if I remember 
rightly, thinks that Columbus was insane in his old age; 
that is, however, often said of great geniuses. 

Of course, we had to go to the cathedral first, as it is 
(so every one says) *' the cathedral of Spain." It is so 
old that nobody knows who founded it. It is so grand 
that we can well believe that the Virgin Mary visited 
it in ^'o^. It is firmly believed that Our Gracious Lady, 
the Yirgin Mary, came down from heaven to visit Ilde- 
fonso with the present of a chasuble. This is a favor- 
ite legend of the Church, and Murillo has painted it 
many times. Afterwards the Moors pulled down the 
church and built a mosque. Then Bishop Bernard, sent 
from France to repress the Order of St. Benedict in 
Spain, tore down the mosque and destroyed all the 
traces of Moslem worship. So the visit of the Yirgin 
appears to have been the only ray of heavenly light, 
the only kindly, gentle, sweet superstition, of this bloody 



THE MOZARABIC CHAPEL 351 

Church for several centuries. I advise them to keep to 
the chasuble. The church was a monastery a century 
and a half. Then St. Ferdinand, a great character in 
Spanish history, had another hack at it and tore it all 
to pieces. In 1227 the first stone of the present struct- 
ure was laid. For two hundred and sixty -six years the 
work of building went on continuously. It was plun- 
dered by Maria de Padilla in 1621, and General de 
Houssage, a worthy copyist of Marshal Soult, sacked it 
again in 1808. 

Here, however, the early Spanish Gothic reigns in all 
its simplicity, majesty, austerity, and strength. For six 
centuries all the best artists of a period when art was 
pure and high enriched this glorious cathedral with their 
noble ideas. A wealthy and enlightened clergy con- 
tinued to make this cathedral a museum of all the dif- 
ferent ecclesiological periods of Spain. There are the 
Gothic, the Graeco-Koman, the Saracenic ; the splendor, 
the lightness, the richness of detail of the Gothic of the 
fifteenth century ; there are variety, movement, and life. 
Indeed, a lifetime might well be spent in this cathedral, 
so many historical, poetical, and artistic associations does 
it arouse. The outside, although impressive, is not equal 
to the inside. It lacks the admirable grouping of the 
masses, so conspicuous in the great cathedrals of Burgos, 
Tarragona, and Seville. Yet nothing can be more lovely 
than the Mozarabic Chapel, with its elegant cupola and 
Gothic open-work. Within goes on that singular ser- 
vice known as the " Unitarian Creed," beloved of Car- 
dinal Ximenes — simple, religious, which leaves out the 
Athanasian Creed, and is said daily. How can I de- 
scribe the sculptured niches, the lions holding up es- 
cutcheons, the forest of lofty columns, the chapel upon 
chapel, the five great naves, the vaults of the roof, the 



363 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

eighty -eight piers, the doors, which are magnificent 
pointed arches ; the wealth of delicate tracery, the splen- 
did stained glass ; the lovely shafts which stop half-way 
to receive the descending arch ; the more ambitious 
ones which take the leaf of the fern, shoot upward, to 
meet with a gracious curve the more retreating arch, 
as a noble nature goes forward to meet a retiring and 
shy heart ! All, all is beautiful, poetical, artistic, soul- 
inspiring. 

Where did they learn this infinity of exquisite detail ? 
There are seven hundred and fifty stained-glass windows. 
There are five or six great churches in one. Two noble 
rose -windows light the transept. Two lateral naves 
wind with a beautiful sweep round the apse, and, as if 
to quell the questioning eye with perfection, a long gal- 
lery of curved diminutive arches runs high up along the 
top of the pillars, a sort of angel gateway to a better 
world. Dying away on the stone floor are the Royal 
purples, the rose color, the blue, the green of these gem- 
like windows, which fill the church with light and color. 
It is not a dim, religious light. Indeed, my friend de- 
clared that it was not sombre enough for a church ; but 
her youthful eyes have been quenching their radiance 
in the dark interiors of Spain, and she loves the deep- 
ening shadows. 

The high chapel is gorgeously gilt and painted blue. 
It has much splendid wood carving, and here, high up. 
Cardinal Mendoza, the " King-maker," sleeps in peace. 
We think of Browning's wonderful poem. How the 
Bishop Ordered his Tomh at St. Praxed^s, as we see 
the man of taste and learning sleeping in stone amidst 
all this beauty which he prized in life. The finest reja 
(or iron gateway) in Spain— a superb combination of 
brass, bronze, and iron — shuts him in. The admirable 



SAN JUAN DE LOS REYES 353 

finish and composition of the bassi-rilievi, the colossal 
crucifix — this must all be a great comfort to the learned, 
art-loving churchman who, doubtless, in dying, bespoke 
this fitting resting-place : 

"Lay me in St. Praxed's, that is the church for peace." 

How I should like to describe the Eetablo, which 
rises in five stories, from the floor to the very roof, a 
magnificent example of florid Gothic! This splendid 
piece of wood-carving was the work of twenty -seven 
artists, one of whom was a converted Moor. You can 
see where his delicate fingers gave it some touch of the 
Alhambra. It is a poem in wood-carving, the subjects 
all from the New Testament ; and the wealth of orna- 
mentation, the profusion of statuettes, do not mar the 
general effect of exquisite grace and simplicity. But 
the mule and the horse and the crazy cart are outside. 
We must not linger in this great, this inexhaustible 
cathedral. 

We must go to San Juan de los Eeyes, where hang the 
iron chains which once the Moor fastened on Christian 
legs, and Ferdinand and Isabella unforged. They are 
impressive ornaments of man's cruelty to man and of 
what can be done in the name of religion. This splen- 
did specimen of the Spanish Gothic is the delight of 
architects. It was erected by Ferdinand and Isabella to 
celebrate the victory whicli made Castile theirs forever. 
The apse is most elegant and chaste, with two tiers of 
arches. 

The carving in this church looks like ivory work, and 
everywhere is that monogram which we never look at 
without emotion, I. and F. — Isabella and Ferdinand — 
while all about an army of sculptured saints cast their 
mysterious shadows on the ground. The Alcazar (which 



354 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

is a palace, an empty house) would be famous and beau- 
tiful if it had not been almost destroyed by fire. The 
walls, the gates, the squares, the streets, and the bridges 
remain to make this one of the most interesting of 
ruined towns. It is mediaeval, Saracenic, and Gothic 
and Spanish. It is like nothing else. To descend intp 
the valley and look up at it, how rich it is ! We drive 
through its streets, which are merely accidents — the 
houses were built first, and these alley-Avays were dug 
out afterwards ; we look at the gateways, the pointed 
horseshoe arch flanked by two high turrets — all are 
picturesque and characteristic. The bridge of Alcantara 
is a wonderful work. Two noble gateways tell you that 
this was built by Al-Massem in 997 to replace one of 
the eighth century. It was fortified by Enrique I. in 
1217, who built for it an imposing tower. Under its 
graceful arch sweeps the Tagus, yellow as gold — an im- 
petuous current, full of the blood of conquest and of 
greed. The bridge of San Martin, almost as beautiful, 
is a delightful subject for the water-colorist. We might 
linger forever at La Puerta Lordada, a Moorish gate- 
way, from which once dangled the gory head of Hixem, 
a favorite architectural ornament of the eighth century. 
It is purely Moorish and wonderfully fine, with its gi- 
gantic towers and narrow winding gateway, small arch, 
wily, destructive, insecure — cautions, like the Moor, taste- 
ful even when cunning. 

It is the evening sun, which lightens up these gray tow- 
ers, and tells us the time has come when we must leave 
the picturesque crown of Spain, of ruined Toledo. Philip 
II., gloomy ascetic, rang its death-knell when he made 
Madrid the capital. But he could not take away its beau- 
ty, its situation, so glorious that from every point new vis- 
ions of beauty gleam out to charm the lingering traveller. 



THE ESCOEIAL 355 

We drove off to see the Moorish houses and to buy 
some " Toledo blades." We saw the only industry 
which still flourishes in this deserted town. Knives of 
such fine temper that their delicate points will pierce a 
copper cent, yet retain their sharp and unbroken point ; 
bull-fighters' swords which bend like a ribbon, which, 
however, can break the back of an Andalusian bull ; ex- 
quisite ornaments, made of steel, inlaid with gold and 
silver — all are worthy to point a moral and adorn a tale ; 
but as the " temper of the blade " has been made the 
subject of maxims and comparisons, until the schoolboy 
dreads the sound of the " tempered blade " as he dreads 
the ruler, I will forbear. 

El Escorial, Spain, June 4, 1889. 

The journey from Madrid to Toledo is only fifty 
miles, but it is five centuries long if one measures it by 
the memories it invokes. We came back to Madrid to 
sleep, and took a fresh start for the Escorial the next 
evening. I tried to recall, as I crossed these arid plains, 
the day when they were covered with forests of oaks, 
chestnuts, and madronos, and filled with bears, wolves, 
and perhaps wild boars, which Charles Y. used to shoot 
with a crossbow. The Kings of Castile came to these 
plains to hunt when Madrid was a city of but little im- 
portance. As for Madrid, it was sometimes chosen for 
a convocation of the Cortes, or for a coronation, but it 
assumed no distinction until Charles Y. made it his 
residence in the sixteenth century. It was his quiet 
hunting-box, vrhither he fled from the state of his great 
palace at Toledo. It was in 1560 that Philip II. de- 
clared it the only court of his united Spain. In this he 
was governed by the same principle which influences us 
sometimes in the choice of a President. We avoid all 



356 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

hostile feeling by selecting the dark horse and disap- 
pointing everybody else. Madrid was a city free from 
local traditions, and was for that reason more willingly 
acceptable to all, and reconciled the other rival claims. 
As we left it behind us we saw the Guadarrama range 
of hills, all covered with snow. This is a fine sight, and 
the shapes reminded us of the White Mountains as 
approached from Franconia. We ascended over wind- 
blown, treeless plains, but we breathed a " purer ether, 
a serener air" than any which had blessed our lungs 
for a very long time. It was delicious mountain air. 
We reached the Escorial at ten in the morning, and 
drove to a very comfortable hotel, " La Miranda," 
where we breakfasted. 

This small village is called El Escorial from the scoriae 
of the iron mines which cover the hillsides. Scoriae in- 
deed ! The Royal residence which bears for us that 
name is really the " Palace and Monastery of San Lo- 
renzo el Real." It is in the village Escorial ; and if you 
can imagine a splendid thing, a village of stone, built 
up half-way on Mount Washington, you have the Esco- 
rial. I thought it beautiful, and Phihp II. a man of 
sense to have built his house amid such scenery and 
with such air to breathe. 

This " leviathan of architecture " is a rectangular par- 
allelogram — to be accurate, it covers a surface of 500,000 
square feet. It cost £660,000 in 1584. How much would 
that be now ? It is majestic, with its four high towers, 
and its many little ones and its fine dome make it very 
pleasing ; its vast proportions, admirable harmony, mas- 
si veness, grandeur — all framed by secluded, wild, rocky 
pine slopes — are a picture indeed ! Here Philip had his 
palace, his church, his court, his royal equipage. I believe 
five thousand people can live in the Escorial. It is co- 



PHILIP THE SECOND 357 

lossal! Sixteen courts, forty altars, eleven hundred and 
eleven windows outside, fifteen hundred and sixty -two 
windows inside, twelve hundred doors, fifteen cloisters, 
eighty-six staircases ! There were eighty-nine fountains 
and thirty-two leagues of garden walk. I^ow, from the 
windows, about an acre of very finished boxwork of the 
earl}^ Italian style is visible, and some flowering trees 
threw up their bright pink to make the green more 
charming ; the roses were clambering over the gray 
walls of the garden, hiding them in beauty. Beyond, 
the splendid mountain scenery arose in silent grandeur. 
It is very impressive. 

How was a lame woman to walk through this vast 
expanse ? I selected the rooms where gloomy Philip 
lived and died so miserably, the broad, handsome, beau- 
tifully fitted-up home of the present court, the library, 
the church, and, later on in the afternoon, the Pantheon, 
where the dead kings lie in grand marble halls, and gave 
up the rest. 

Whether Philip II. inherited his gloom and insanity 
from his grandmother, crazy Jane, or not, he was cer- 
tainly sincere. When he built this oppressively sub- 
lime and gigantic convent and palace he expressed not 
only his own peculiar character, but his legitimate in- 
heritance as a Spaniard — a race deeply tinctured with 
the ideas of the East, ever seeking seclusion for their 
pleasure, devotion, and business. Proud to an enormous 
degree, morbidly devout, Philip was full of character 
and genius, and admirably artistic. It is a combination 
of which we Anglo-Saxons have little knowledge. We 
little know the meaning of the word " faith." We call 
it " superstition," but it meant everything to Philip II. ; 
and to Charles Y., his greater father, it meant every- 
thing. 



358 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

The church is a triumph of the Graeco-Komaa style, 
and considered a masterpiece. I found it cold, naked, 
repulsive. It is a square basilica, assuming the shape 
of a Greek cross. It has twenty-four arches and six 
naves. It is adorned with kneeling statues and figures 
of saints, all powerfully rendered. A most touching 
link with the present is the tomb of the late Queen 
Mercedes, the first wife of Alfonso XII. (the poor young 
King just dead, whose baby reigns in Spain). She 
begged of them not to lay her in this gloomy place, but 
the Spanish etiquette was inexorable. With her died 
the hopes of the Due de Montpensier, who had expected 
much from the " Spanish marriages," 

This vast, lonely church is sorrowful in the extreme. 
The high chapel which Philip died looking at is built 
over the Pantheon where his bones rest. Mass goes on 
forever over his remains. The altar is made of precious 
marbles and inlaid jasper. The Eetablo is glorious, 
composed of red granite, precious jaspers, and bronze 
gilt. It is the masterpiece of an Italian, Giacomo 
Mezzo. 

The bronze-gilt and painted effigies of the kings are 
interesting. One of Charles Y. and his wife, the Empress 
Isabella ; his daughter, the Empress Maria ; his sisters, 
Eleanora and Maria, is very interesting ; and that of 
Philip II., his fourth wife, Anna, mother of Phihp III. ; 
his third wife, Isabella ; and his second wife. Dona Maria 
of Portugal, mother of Don Carlos ; and behind her 
"this much - written - of Prince," looking very foolish. 
These are all portraits, and said to be wonderful like- 
nesses. All there but poor Mary of England, w^ho loved 
Philip so well. We visited the Sacristia and saw the 
wonderful wafer which bled when the heretics trod on 
it. The bleeding saints and images of our Saviour 



THE PANTHEON 359 

which drop the bloody sweat that we have seen are in- 
numerable. 

There is a beautiful Carrara-marble crucifix made by 
Benvenuto Cellini. It was made for his Koyal patron 
the Duke of Tuscany, who gave it to Philip II. It was 
brought hither from Barcelona on the shoulders of men. 
The great Benvenuto himself says of it : " Although I 
have made several marble statues, I have made but one 
crucifix, the most difficult for art to render — that is, of 
a dead body. I speak of the image of ' Our Lord Cru- 
cified,' for which I studied a great deal, working upon 
it with the diligence and love which such a simulacre 
deserves, and also because I knew myself to be the first 
who ever executed a crucifix in marble." 

We had brought with us from Madrid a ^ermiso to 
see the Pantheon, seldom shown. This I owe, as I do 
many kindnesses, to Sir Clare Ford, the English Am- 
bassador. It is a cellar of precious marbles, gilt coffins, 
jewelled crosses ; all the pomp and panoply of death. 
Here lie those poor bones once bearing the exalted 
names of Charles Y., Philip II., and so on, down to King 
Alfonso XII. Marbles from Tortosa and Biscay, jas- 
per from Toledo, bronze-gilt ornaments — all that can 
accompan}^ the poor clay is here. Queen Isabella II., 
the mother of Alfonso, has her casket awaiting her 
above that of her son. She always hears midnight 
mass when she comes to Madrid. 

Leaving the room of the reigning monarchs, we 
wandered through several rooms, in one of which I 
found the beautiful recumbent image of Don John of 
Austria, the hero of Lepanto, the handsome fingers 
covered with rings. He begged in that last pitiful 
letter of his to his half-brother, Philip, to be buried 
here, " as the fittest reward for his services." Poor 



360 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

boy, who wore victory in his cap! The cold-blooded 
King, who heard of the victory at Lepanto without 
moving a muscle, who left Don John to perish mis- 
erably at Namur, gave him, however, kingly sepul- 
ture. Don John was the handsomest of his race, a 
magnificent profile ; one of the heroes of the world ; 
a gifted and grand creature, sacrificed to the lust of 
power and the enmity and hatred of his nearest of kin. 
The library of the Escorial was selected with care 
and magnificence. It bears the stamp to - day of 
Philip's accomplished mind, so wide in its intellectu- 
ality, so barren morally. The Escorial was intended 
by Philip to be the emporium of the fine arts, the 
sciences, the letters of the age. Many of the books were 
burned long ago, but their cases we saw. They are of 
ebony, cedar, orange, and dark woods. It is a long, beau- 
tiful room, with that delicious atmosphere which libra- 
ries always possess, as if here dwelt the choice spirits 

of the learned. 

"Around me I behold 
The mighty minds of old." 

The portraits are singularly interesting. After Charles 
Y., aged forty-nine, by Titian, we have Philip II. at 
seventy-one, Philip III. at twenty-three (he never grew 
any older in mind), and Charles II. at fourteen. A 
very curious collection of Arabic missals was once 
here — a captured library of the Emperor of Morocco, 
who offered £60,000 for them, but he never got them. 
What once went into Philip's hands never got out again, 
or not for long. Fire, however, came in 1691 and lasted 
fourteen days, consuming whole portions of the Escorial. 
The library suffered dreadfully. 

However, there is a fine Koran left, and a " Codice 
Aureo," or Gospel, in four books, heavy with gold. It 



A STRANGE DISCORD 361 

was begun under Conrad II., Emperor of the West, 
and finished about the middle of the eleventh century. 
The illuminations are very curious. And many fine 
breviaries belonging to Isabella the Catholic and her 
Eoyal descendants are shown. We went back to the 
dark and dreary place where Philip's arm - chair and 
desk, his poor bed, his monk-like cell, are as he left 
them. Here he suffered the agonies of gout, and bore 
his great pain heroically. He wished the w^hole palace 
to be a cell, but after his death his descendants thought 
differently. Under Charles TV. the whole wing of the 
palace looking out over the snow mountains was fitted 
up with tapestry, frescoes, French furniture, and French 
woodwork, at a cost of nearly £300,000. Here the 
woodwork, the beautiful gold and steel hinges, the 
magnificent tapestries, fine pictures by Teniers, by 
Wouverman, by Goya, and by French artists, are in 
strange contrast to the three-legged stool on which 
Philip rested his gouty foot. 

If the Escorial was the emanation of a mighty mind 
tainted with melancholy — a mind which loved to 
ponder on the sombre, awful, retributive side of re- 
ligion — it is at least consistent. 

The other gay rooms are inconsistent, and bring in a 
strange discord. It is as if a Spanish dance were 
played amid the splendid diapason of Beethoven's 
march " On the Death of a Hero." You seem to pause 
in the midst of the notes of a penitential psalm sound- 
ing from the mighty organ, with, perhaps, the clash 
of cymbals and the far-reaching trumpets, sustaining 
the muffled drums of a military mass, to listen to the 
rattle of castanets and the tinkling of guitars. 

Spain present is less majestic than Spain past. The 
impression made on me of this sombre pile was not 



362 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

disappointment, not gloom ; it was all majesty and 
repose. It fits well the extensive, melancholy waste ; 
the treeless, trackless desert; the mountains rising in 
ever-varied outline one upon the other. It is lofty, in- 
spiring, religious, and rises, as did his prayers, to God, 
let us hope. Profoundly sad, it tells of the insufficiency 
of creed, of the futility of ambition, of the desperate 
disappointment which awaits any man who lives for 
himself and not for others. Would that it could be 
made into a grand hospital for the thousands of blind, 
lame, halt, sick, starving poor of Spain! Then would 
religion, devoted to philanthropy, cease to be gloomy. 
Then would there be a great reason for the Escorial. 
Then would the sunny side of God's love beam on this 
ascetic sermon in stone. With mercy, hope, bliss, and 
love to irradiate it, the Escorial would become the bless- 
ing, as it is now the wonder, of Spain. 

We came out of Spain by Burgos, where we saw the 
dirtiest city, the worst hotel, and perhaps the best cathe- 
dral in all Spain ; also a superb tomb to Don John of 
Castile, erected by his sister, Isabella the Catholic ; and 
with this beautiful memory of the great Queen, who 
sanctified all that she touched, we left the most inter- 
esting country in the world. At least to us Americans, 
what country can be so interesting as that of Columbus ? 
and now that two of our greatest writers — Prescott and 
Irving — have written its varied story, what country 
should we be more anxious to see ? 



CHAPTER XIX 

An Imaginary Conversation with an Editor — Tlie Effect of Fashion 
on Our Social Life — Our American Society and Its Leaders — 
Snobs and Snobbery — Society and Its Mission in Our National 
Life — King Fashion and His Power — A Last Word. 

Perhaps I may be pardoned if I digress from my rem- 
iniscences to preach a little sermon on a certain phase 
in our American social life which has always deeply in- 
terested me. But no, it shall not be a sermon, after all. 
I will adopt the Socratic method as the most effectual 
vehicle for what I have to say. 

" I wonder," said a handsome young editor to me (he 
was undergoing the process of being lionized at a fash- 
ionable watering-place) — "I wonder alwa\^s at the 
prominence of certain sets, the power of certain leading 
women, the tyranny of fashion. What does it mean ? 
Why is not one set as good as another? Why are cer- 
tain leaders elected whose dictum is infallible? Why 
do certain people create an exclusive atmosphere into 
into which certain other people cannot penetrate ? And 
why are you women so afraid of each other? Why 
has Mrs. Brown-Jones's eye a power which Mrs. Jones- 
Brown's eye has not ? I think the one quite as pretty 
a woman as the other, quite as clever. What does it 
mean ?" 

'' Well," I answered, after due reflection, " ^^ou have 
asked the most unanswerable of questions. If I answer 
you at all, it must be only approximatively : it cannot be 



364 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

conclusive. For fashion always, from the beginning of 
the world to the present moment, has been an undefinable 
term. You may say that it requires wealth, beauty, 
good position, and tact to become a fashionable leader ; 
and yet I have known a woman to hold all these cards 
without succeeding in her ambition. Again, I have 
known a woman to become a fashionable leader who 
held none of them. It seems to be a sixth sense, a 
union of certain advantages and certain ambitions. A 
woman must care to be a leader first." 

" But how many care to be, and work very hard for 
it, and never succeed !" said he. 

" Many, no doubt ; you have described a very large 
class, and hence that ^ masquerade of hate ' w^hich goes 
on in fashionable society, which is so full of baffled am- 
bitions and disappointed hopes. A woman of ten. em- 
barks more talent, more work, more heart in her enter- 
prise than you have invested in your newspaper, and she 
utterly fails. Society will not see her ; society will not 
fall down and worship ; society is neither influenced by 
her nor afraid of her ; it neither loves nor fears her. Do 
you wonder that she becomes soured, embittered, and 
scornful, and abuses that which she cannot canquer ?" 

'' Yes ; I wonder, first, at her ambition ; secondly, at 
her being baffled." 

" Ah ! That is because you are a man, and cannot 
read the politics of women. You are a great student of 
those of men ; you have not studied those of women." 

^' Because, you know," said the editor, " the man does 
not live who can understand a woman." 

" No ; perhaps you would not be so fond of us if you 
did." 

" I should not have dared to say that." 

" I should not have allowed you to. But ' to return 



A SOCIAL BLUEBERRY PUDDING 365 

to our muttons.' You agree with me that the forma- 
tion of a good social position is a very great thing. 
The woman who makes her parlor a rallying -point for 
nice people is doing a great public service. She who, in 
a great city, is a fashionable leader is a power in the 
state. She helps to refine, elevate, purify our great 
American conglomerate, where distinction and individu- 
ality are obliged to submerge themselves in the common 
mass, and where a high grade of mediocrity, but noth- 
ing better, obtains. Those choicer intelligences which, 
in older and more aristocratic societies, can stand on 
their glass pedestals, isolated from the common herd, 
have no existence here ; our institutions forbid them. 
We are all mixed together — a sort of social blueberry 
pudding, no one berry any better than any other berry. 

" So, you see, it is left to a woman leader to make this 
particular pudding in a superior manner. She must 
know how to discriminate between those who are to be 
let in and those who are to be kept out, for exclusive- 
ness is a very necessary part of it — in fact, it is the 
whole stock-in-trade of one of our most distinguished 
leaders ; and then she must know how, and when, and 
in what proportions to mix her ingredients." 

" I wish," said the editor, pensively, " that she always 
knew how to seat her company at dinner. Why, last 
evening I was put betv/een my most intimate friend 
and my most intimate enemy, to neither of whom did 
I wish to speak. My friend and I were talked out, my 
enemy and I wouldn't speak." 

"That was ignorance and crass stupidity," said I; 
" but both those qualities can belong to a leader of 
fashion." 

" Then do draw a line— some line. Give me an im- 
aginary picture of a leader. Do not keep on drawing 



366 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

^ this impossible monster, whom the world never saw.' 
Tell me of some one leader, and why she has succeeded." 

I saw the editor was getting irritable. He had eaten 
many good dinners, had been much flattered, was up 
late at night ; his nerves were unstrung. I took pity 
on him, and described three women : 

" One great leader of fashion whom I knew succeeded 
by cruelty alone. She, of course, had talent, some 
money, some prestige of family name. But she came 
to a watering-place with a determination to succeed, to 
marry off her young daughter, and to rule society. She 
began by being very agreeable (giving some choice 
parties), and by propitiating those persons who, by reason 
of their wealth, propriety of conduct, and social position, 
always constitute what is called the first circle. Then 
she began to insult and injure those who had delicacy, 
timidity, and modesty, and so she made people afraid 
of her. It became a question whether Mrs. Hightowers 
was going to speak to you or throw her fan in your 
face. She began to be a terror to all the weak people, 
of whom there are many in every society. A want of 
social courage is a natural defect in a society which has 
no defined boundaries. Mrs. Hightowers went from 
bad to worse. It was known that she could spoil the 
career of any young lady at a watering-place if she 
chose. She could also make it a success. This she 
achieved by impudence, self-confidence, cruelty. Many 
powerful families in this country have achieved a high 
position by the exercise of similar qualities. Thackeray 
says, ' The way to succeed is to push. Stamp on your 
neighbor's foot, and will he not draw it away V Such 
people have allies in the modest, the timorous, and the 
delicate people who hold themselves too high to contend 
with such a nature as Mrs. Hightowers's. We are at 



THE THIRD LEADER 367 

the mercy of such people, to a certain extent, because 
our dignity forbids our entering such a field or fighting 
such an enemy. So Mrs. Hightowers had a short suc- 
cess." 

" I am so glad to hear that it was short," said the 
editor. '' Do get to the end of her, and tell me about a 
more agreeable leader." 

" Well, there was Mrs. Clavering. She was a simple, 
unambitious person, very beautiful and attractive, and 
with a gift of exclusiveness. She would give a ball, and 
leave out two or three ambitious aspirants. The ball 
would be perfect, for Mrs. Clavering knew how to do 
things. Therefore, when Mrs. Clavering gave another 
ball there were heartaches and headaches lest the card 
did not come. People used to say, on seeing her and 
hearing her talk (for Mrs. Clavering was by no means 
brilliant), ' How can such a woman be a leader? ' But, 
you see, she had the negative qualities. 

" Other women, far more clever, would be too clever ; 
they would be too good-natured; at the last minute 
they would let in the panting aspirant, and thus lose 
the prestige of refusal. There are only one or two 
such leaders as this, but they are the most clever 
of all. 

" Then comes a third leader, Mrs. Devonshire we will 
call her. She has wealth, high position ; she is the wife 
of a dignitary ; she has to receive all sorts of people, 
but she has such tact, such goodness, such delicacy, 
such discrimination, that her salon never degenerates. 
She works like a hero ; no Joan of Arc ever stormed or 
took a more forlorn hope than that which this lady 
perpetually conquers ; for she encounters vulgarit}^, 
social ignorance, stupidity, pretension, and fashion ; 
mixes them all into her pudding, and produces a sue- 



368 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

cessful result. She creates a salon to which the most 
exclusive are glad to be admitted, and from which the 
most vulgar and pretentious come away improved. But, 
I am sorry to say, such leaders are not common. I only 
know one such." 

" I fear you do not," said the editor. " If there were 
many of them, society would be a much more fascinat- 
ing thing than it is. But I now wish to ask you to 
define the word * snob.' I have read Thackeray on the 
subject, and I rise from the perusal still uneducated. 
Please to define and interpret for me the conduct of 
certain individuals who, at the fashionable watering- 
place of Fish's Eddj^, court and run after Mrs. Claver- 
ing and her set, and will not know Mrs. Fotheringay 
and her set. Now, I have dined with Mrs. Fother- 
ingay, found her house charming, and her guests well- 
bred and delightful; while her sons and daughters 
seemed to have all the accomplishments. Mrs. Foth- 
eringay herself was a well-bred lady; yet I am told 
that they are not fashionable, and ^ know nobody.' 
What does this mean ?" 

"Well, it means that Mrs. Fotheringay has been in 
Europe a great deal ; she does not care much for ' sets ' ; 
she is too dignified to take any steps towards what is 
called a ' fashionable position ' ; she is too good for it ; 
she prefers to wait and let people find her out; she 
stands on her own platform securely, and hesitates to 
try her neighbors. 

" One of these days some fashionable young man will 
want one of her pretty daughters. They will be mar- 
ried, and then Mrs. Clavering's set will call on Mrs. 
Fotheringay, and she will become fashionable." 

" I feel that I am constantly knowing less and less 
what fashion means," said the editor. 



OTJR AMERICAN SOCIETY AND ITS LEADERS 369 

"As language is given to us to conceal our ideas, 
I seem to be making a success of my explanation," 
said I. 

" What place has wealth in this tyranny?" asked 
the editor. 

" It has a very commanding place always in so- 
ciety, for society includes nowadays luxury. You 
may say, generally, that it is a very important thing 
to be beautiful, for a woman ; yet, as we see that 
the very great beauties do not always gain hearts as 
the plainer women do, so the great fortunes do not 
always make their possessors either famous or fashion- 
able. We have some eminent instances of very rich 
women who are at the same time accomplished leaders 
of fashion, but we have also many instances of others 
who are not. I should say tact was worth much more 
than wealth as a road to leadership." 

" What do you mean by ' tact ' ?" 

" I mean that subtile apprehension which teaches a 
person how to do and say the right thing at the right 
time. It coexists with very ordinary qualities, and yet 
many great geniuses are without it. Of all human quali- 
ties I consider it the most convenient — not always the 
highest; yet I would rather have it than man}^ more 
shining qualities." 

" Now, tell me," said the editor, " why are all social 
leaders so tyrannical ?" 

" You harp on that word perpetually," said I, laugh- 
ing ; '' and why ?" 

" I have just seen a case of social ostracism that was 
entirely undeserved," said he. 

" Describe it to me, and I will venture to read the 
riddle." 

" A very pretty young married woman, with her hus- 



370 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

band, arriv^ed at the Pine-Tree House at Fish's Eddy 
in the height of the season. She sang delightfully for 
us every evening, and, being beautiful, well-dressed, rich, 
and educated, I predicted a success for her. So, as the 
Mrs. Clavering of the period was giving a ball, I asked 
for an invitation for ray pretty friend." 

" ' What ! that w^oraan V said Mrs. Clavering. 

^' ' Yes,' said I. ' Do you know anything against her V 

" ^ Oh, she is so common ! She sings every evening 
at the Pine-Tree House, and everybody knows about 
her.' 

'' ' Is not that a condition of fashionable success, that 
every one should know about one V said I. 

" Mrs. Clavering gave me a look, and begged politely 
to refuse my request. J^ow, there arrived at the Pine- 
Tree House another young married lady, not half so 
presentable or nice, from the same town as my first 
love (whom I will call Mrs. Daisy). Number two (whom 
I will call Mrs. Buttercups) immediatelj^ got acquaint- 
ed with some fashionable young men, and was invited 
everywhere ; now why was that ?" 

" I think I can explain : Mrs. Daisy should have 
adopted a different code of social ethics ; she should not 
have sung, she should have let Mrs. Clavering discover 
her and bring her out. Mrs. Clavering did not want 
an old sensation — one that had been heard at the Pine- 
Tree House — she wanted a new one. Mrs. Daisy was 
too pure and good and natural to know or care about 
this, perhaps. She sang as a bird sings, without thought 
that she was thus throwing away an introduction into 
society. Now, Mrs. Buttercups got the best of allies 
on her side by making herself fascinating to certain 
young men who have the entree to all these houses. It 
is not a handsome way of getting invitations, but, un- 



ONE CURIOUS EXPERIMENT OF EQUALITY 371 

fortunately, it is too common. It is a part of that thirst 
for fashionable distinction which has possessed the mind 
of Americans, just as Wall Street has driven the men 
crazy to be rich." 

" It seems to me that there is a constant temptation 
to meanness and selfishness and smallness in this strug- 
gle for fashion," said the editor. 

" Will you tell me is there any human struggle in 
which there is not the same temptation ? Is the strug- 
gle for political success any more ennobling? Is the 
struggle to get rich any more generous ?" 

'' 'No ; they are all marked by human infirmity ; but 
then the struggle is for greater things." 

" Ah ! there we take issue," said I. " This passion 
for social distinction is as old as the Pyramids. To 
have your rank, to stand well with your contempora- 
ries, is not an ignoble ambition. I grant you that our 
curious experiment of equality has brought about some 
absurd and impalpable and false barriers, which certain 
people essay to build up against another set — certain 
street barricades thrown up in a passion, bloodily fought 
for, and, when gained, worth nothing ; it is a kind of 
guerilla warfare which is waged every winter by cer- 
tain women with ambition and bad temper; but that 
is not society. That is one of the consequences of new- 
ness. To gain admission to certain salons which you 
and I know and admire is a different thing. We know 
the women who preside over them confer distinction 
by their acquaintance ; we know that in their houses 
we shall meet society winnowed of its vulgarity, pre- 
tension, and ignorance — we shall find individuals. As 
Margaret Fuller said, 'to have unity, you must first 
have units.' Our friend knows where to find the units, 
and she combines with them luxury, fashion, dress, 



372 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

splendor — all that can intoxicate the senses — without 
leaving a Ho-morrow' in the cup. There are such 
houses in our American society. To be ambitious to 
gain a foothold in them is not unworthy of the most 
dignified neophyte." 

"Certainly not," replied the editor, "but I wish 
there were not so many who are willing to go by the 
back stairs." 

" Ah ! You must remember that snobs are born, and 
not made." 

" Did I not ask you a short time ago to define the 
word ' snob ' ?" 

" Yes, and I turned the conversation, for it is almost 
impossible; however, I will try. A refined snob is a 
person of other vYise good qualities, of which reverence 
is one ; but he has not the courage of his opinions — he 
is a victim of social cowardice. He is afraid, in fact, 
of his own social position, perhaps entirely without rea- 
son ; but you cannot call courage to a heart which has 
it not. Therefore, he is a victim to the social leaders, 
who have that priceless commodity, impudence. The 
respectable snob lives in perpetual fear of phantoms, 
which he conjures up for himself. He fears that Mrs. 
Clavering looked coldly on him, that Miss Brown-Jones 
will not dance with him ; in fact, the respectable snob 
has no easy fife. If a woman, she suffers tortures. 
Every social occasion is freighted with dangers and 
pin -pricks. 

" The vulgar snob is a far coarser creature. He is 
generally a foreigner of ignoble antecedents, who finds 
in our country a position he never could have held in 
his own. His tyranny is immense, if he gets high 
enough ; his subserviency absurd, if he is kept down. I 
have known the native vulgar snob occasionally ; but 



SOCIETY AND ITS MISSION IN OUR NATIONAL LIFE 373 

to blossom into full luxuriance the snob must be a 
foreigner. To be a snob argues a profound absence of 
self-respect ; perhaps the sufferer should be more pitied 
than blamed. 

" It is to this element, this presence of snobbism, that 
we owe much of the failure of society. It disgusts the 
honest and the sensible. They meet it always at the 
portals of the great world, and they retire before it. 
Certain brave and modest and genuine young men 
shun it as an unclean thing. They see their comrades 
whom they have not respected, perhaps at school or 
college, or on the ball-field, or in the rowing-match — 
men who are their inferiors in every respect — they see 
these men succeeding in society, and through a sub- 
servient, slavish snobbery. They naturally conclude 
that a society which endures such things must be a sort 
of place which they will not enjoy, and they retire ac- 
cordingly, taking from society the element that it so 
much needs — their sincere selves." 

" One hates a coward, anyway," said the editor. 

" Yes, and a coward who succeeds, even measurably, 
through his cowardice is doubly hated. But I think 
there should be more pity for snobs ; just as you pity 
the deformed and the maimed : they are not to blame." 

" How long does a social leader last in this country ?" 
inquired my companion, who was given to statistics. 

" Well, not long ; the same rotation in office prevails 
as in politics. It would be much better if they lasted 
longer. You see, our society needs a head. Having no 
queen, no nobility, we have no standard in social poli- 
tics, no party to hail from. As in every other profes- 
sion, practice makes perfect, and those women who have 
been long at the work are much better fitted to make a 
society which shall represent at least some elements of 



374 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

agreeability than those who come to it newly. As a 
consequence, we occasionally have a dull winter, a dull 
summer at a watering-place, when a good leader w^ould 
have made the whole thing very gay. We very much 
need a master of ceremonies at the watering-places to 
introduce people, and to keep out the adventuresses, 
who are making their way perpetually into the society'- 
which should know them not. We need a censor of pub- 
lic morals, too ; but that we never shall have." 

"And a hospital for those who are killed by the 
cruelty of women," said the editor. " I mean other 
women. I have seen elderly women so cruel to young 
ones — old society leaders killing young and handsome 
neophytes with a glance, those in good society looking 
so askance at those who are not. I want a hospital for 
the wounded 1" 

" Oh, you may save your pity ! The young and hand- 
some ones are very recuperative, and they have a terri- 
ble revenge. Time is fighting for them all the time." 

" But I have seen some delicate souls wounded to the 
death," said he. 

" So have I. Fashion has its story of Keats, of that 
handsome young actor Walter Montgomery, who shot 
himself because the critics pitched into him so merci- 
lessly ; and then, too late, they found out that he was 
the most romantic of Komeos. Fashion has its parallel 
to the boy Chatterton, no doubt ; I have known a gifted 
and lovely woman stung to madness by social arrows, 
by the wounds inflicted by the hands of other and jeal- 
ous women ; but such tragedies are rare." 

" I must say that even one such takes -away the taste 
for society," said the editor. 

" And yet one or two failures have not impaired your 
interest in politics," said I. 



KING FASHION AND HIS POWER 375 

" You are unfair in your argument. Politics is busi- 
ness. Society is a pleasure," replied he. 

" No, I think society is a business ; it becomes so in 
its practical working, and you find in it, as I have said, 
only the imperfections of our common nature. The 
jealousies of the convent are quite as narrow and bit- 
ter and cruel as those of society, and the benefits less. 
See how society and social attraction brighten up the 
mind ! One says unexpectedly good things at a dinner, 
or in the presence of a gay company. That is one of 
the advantages." 

" But I think society very levelling. I think fashion 
extinguishes, or aims at extinguishing, wit. Emerson 
says that ' the constitutions which can bear in open day 
the rough dealing of the world must be of that mean 
and average structure such as iron and salt, atmospheric 
air and water ; but there are metals like potassium and 
sodium, which, to be kept pure, must be kept under 
naphtha.' So I think the best elements of the human 
mind evaporate in the air of fashion, and only the com- 
monplace flourishes." 

'' There is a great deal in what you say, no doubt. 
The commonplace and the vulgar have great vitality 
in them, like certain weeds ; but I still think there are 
many flowers which flourish in the atmosphere of fash- 
ion. Look at the beautiful, pure young daughters of 
our best houses, how they adorn and are adorned. Look 
at the grace it introduces, the courtesy, the elegance, 
the picture which it makes ! Contrast a salon at N'ew- 
port with one at Julesburg or Salt Lake City, and which 
do you prefer ?" 

" Decidedly ISTewport, which is one of the perfect 
places of the world ; for there you have fashion en- 
grafted on home, social science with a background of 



376 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

respectability and reality. There the American people 
take their pleasure with a certain deliberateness and 
quietude which do not exist elsewhere. Bonaparte said 
he found the * vices were very good patriots ' when he 
laid a tax on brandy. The virtues are good patriots, 
and one forgives the lavish expenditure in equipage and 
dinners and dress when one sees the patriots who in- 
dulge in these things teaching a whole nation good 
taste," said the editor. 

" I wish the tyranny of fashion would give us a lN"apo- 
leon I.," said I ; "an absolute monarch whose decisions 
were final. I think it would quiet so many uneasy 
souls, and bring about such delicious peace. I believe 
in absolute monarchy — ' a despotism tempered by assassi- 
nation,' a good tyrant." 

" Then I should open all the terrors of the newspaper 
upon him, and he would be crushed by the immense 
engine of the press," said the editor. 

" l^ever," said I. " King Fashion cannot be crushed. 
He has a thousand lives, a million heads ; you and your 
great newspaper would be the first to bow before him, 
and to own up to his power. All mankind and woman- 
kind have done it always, and will do it forever. His 
great realm is boundless, his revenues enormous. How 
many millions do we pay annually for artificial flowers ? 
More than we pay for iron ! There is no trouble in col- 
lecting the revenues of King Fashion ; his subjects are 
enthusiastically loyal — don't you think so ?" 

"Perhaps," said the editor. "At any rate, I will 
allow you — the last word." 

In trying to rescue from the "full-voiced past" that 
which I remember as having been a great pleasure, and 
now bewail as being a distinct loss in our present 



THE "artist KECEPTIONS ' 377 

society, I must mention the " artist receptions," given 
everj^ spring by the artists of the brush, often in their 
own studios, sometimes in the Academy of Music or in 
some large hall, the invitations being by card. These 
were festive to a degree, and owed their inception, I 
suspect, to my friend John W. Ehninger, who had come 
here from Europe early in the fifties, bringing with him 
much aroma of that student life which we have all since 
seen and enjoyed in Eome and in Paris. He was a man 
of society, a brilliant wit, and made his own studio de- 
lightful wherever it was, giving little informal spreads. 
Darley, a less social but very handsome man, was apt to 
be present ; and Winthrop Chanler and Theodore "Win- 
throp were sure to happen in. At the mysterious studio 
in "West Tenth Street Mr. Church exercised a rather 
magnificent hospitality under the very smile of the 
"Temperate Tropics," his great picture, where a brill- 
iant blue butterfly added its own azure to the scene. 
After he left that great room Mr. Bierstadt took it, and 
was regally hospitable. I remember that he entertained 
Lord Dufferin there at a very handsome breakfast. 

All united together — Kensett, Eastman Johnson, 
Whittredge, McEntee, the two Giffords, and the other 
geniuses of that day — to give us yearly an artists' re- 
ception — a public affair at which the ladies wore their 
prettiest bonnets and gowns, and it came very near 
to the famous Yarnishing Day in Paris. 

I know of no such easy, pleasant way of meeting 
each other nowadays. Although the gorgeous enter- 
tainments of our gifted architect Stanford White in his 
own Giralda Tower may be a fitting successor, they are 
not for us all. Music has taken to giving parties, at 
Carnegie Hall, in place of her sister art of Painting. 
She is the hostess now. 



378 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY 

I miss, too, the smaller circumference of the Academy 
of Music, where one listened to the charming voice of 
Nilsson in Mignon, or applauded our own Clara Louise 
Kellogg in Marguerite, and could see all one's own 
circle of friends in one wandering glance around the 
house. ISTow who knows anybody, or can see anybody, 
in the great cosmopolitan Metropolitan Opera House? 
It is far more grand, but is it as dear and as personal ? 
No. 

We miss the great stars like Booth and Salvini ; we 
miss the finish and social importance of Wallack's 
Theatre ; we miss that Avhich splendor cannot obliter- 
ate — the greater study, the conscientious fidelity to the 
rules of their art of those old stock actors like John 
Gilbert, Mrs. Sefton, the Wallacks and the Hollands, 
Stoddart, and Walcot. 

As for music, it seems an unparalleled non sequitur, in 
the face of the great Wagner cult, to say that I should 
like to hear Lucia and La Gazza Ladra again, not to 
mention La Grande Duchesse and Perichole. 

It was a nice, sociable little city forty years ago, but 
we have grown both larger and smaller. We had two 
very fine costume balls at which I assisted — ^^one rather 
ruled by Mrs. Belmont — at Delmonico's, somewhere 
about 1875 or '6, and another, in 1883, at Mr. W. K. 
Yanderbilt's. They did not excite half the talk, the 
criticism, that one given in 1897 has done. Why ? 

Whose business is it how rich people spend their 
money ? If they have it they will spend it ; and for- 
merly we accepted the situation (and the invitation) 
and enjoyed the ball. So that it seems to me that in 
the best sense New York was larger and more cos- 
mopolitan than it is to-day. 

The late Charles Astor Bristed wrote a most excel- 



THE GREAT SUNBURST OF THE FUTURE 379 

lent pamphlet on " The Interference Theory of Govern- 
ment," which might well be quoted now apropos of the 
advice given to an opulent host and hostess : " Why talk 
about ' Culpable Luxury V — all tasteful luxury is the 
friend of art and refinement ; extravagance is not lux- 
ury." I think Bristed was just then angry at some news- 
paper criticisms on wine-drinking — some temperance 
movement — but he made a good plea for the liberty of 
the subject. 

To-day there are a hundred l^ew Yorks, each having 
its own life and its separate circles, its geographical and 
its social divisions, yet all driving out through one 
Fifth Avenue to one lovely Park, and at evening all 
reading the papers, to see what the others are doing. 
Let us be as large as London or Paris, neither of which 
would concern itself about one fancy ball more or less. 

The Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the fine 
churches, the grand array of talent in these churches, 
the beautiful music in them (rivalling the choirs of 
Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's), the endless con- 
certs, and the clubs, literary, social, and philanthropic, 
leave little to be desired. Best of all, the educational 
privileges. The Cooper Union, for art students, has 
long been a blessing. The young women, what can 
they not learn, what can they not achieve, with Colum- 
bia University annex thrown open to them ? 

In this great outlook for women's broader intellectual 
development I see the great sunburst of the future. I 
have not lived in vain if I have done my mite to help 
it along. 

To the girls of the coming age I w^ould ofi'er a 
congratulatory hand. 

" What you can do, or dream you can, begin it ; 
Boldness hath genius, power, and magic in it." 



380 AN EPISTLE TO POSTEEITY 

Only I hope the sweet type of the past, the gentle 
Phyllis, the womanly girl, may not be left out. 

The girl of the future should embody all the types — 
the rose, and also the bud with all its "sweetest leaves 
yet folded." 



THE END 



MANNEKS AND SOCIAL USAGES 



Manners and Social Usages in America. By Mrs. 
John Sherwood. New and Revised Edition. 16mo, 
Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. 

There is, we should say, no doubt that this is the best American 
book on the topics indicated by the title, and we have no hesitation 
in heartily commending it as such. It is the special merit of the 
book that it does not confine itself to cnt-and-dried rules of etiquette, 
bnt abounds in sensible suggestions and brief and intelligent discus- 
sions of social ethics. It is also an essentially readable book. — Chris- 
tian Union, N. Y. 

As a guide to the most refined observance of social etiquette in 
America, it has won general indorsement and esteem. — Saturday 
Evening Gazette, Boston. 

Relates to every imaginable phase of the subject, treats all points 
with refinement, good sense, and knowledge from the fashionable 
standpoint. It is designed not to treat the subject from the ethical 
or didactic point of view, but to describe simply the customs that 
prevail in the most representative circles of American fashion. Its 
value depends on the fact that that service, such as it is, has been 
rendered by no one else as well as by the author of this manual. — 
Independent, N. Y. 

Mrs. Sherwood's admirable little volume differs from ordinary 
works on the subject of etiquette, chiefly in the two facts that it is 
founded on its author's personal familiarity with the usages of really 
good society, and that it is inspired by good sense and a helpful 
spirit. There is nothing of pretence in it, nothing of that weak wor- 
ship of conventionality which gives the stamp of essential vulgarity 
to the greater part of what is written on this subject. . . . We think 
Mrs. Sherwood's little book the very best and most sensible one of its 
kind that we ever saw. — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 

We have no hesitation in declaring it to be the best work of the 
kind yet published. The author shows a just appreciation of what 
is good breeding and what is snobbishness. ... In happy discrimina- 
tions the excellence of Mrs. Sherwood's book is conspicuous. — BrooTc- 
Jyn Union. 

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York 

^1" The above work is for sale by all booksellers^ or will be sent by the 

publishers, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price. 

1 



A TEAJSTSPLANTED KOSE 



A Story of New York Society. By Mrs. John Sher- 
WOOD. 16mo, Paper, 50 cents. 

The story is cleverly told, and gives a picture of metropolitan 
society which is realistic in the extreme. The author writes from an 
intimate knowledge, and, as she has the gifts of wit and humor, por- 
trays her characters in graphic sketches. A piquant undertone of 
satire serves further to gratify the reader. — Boston Traveller. 

The narrative is vivacious, there is plenty of incident, and the 
book is very entertaining. — N. Y. Herald. 

The story, aside from its plot, which is interesting, is a clever 
satire on New York society. The flirt, the politician, the parvenu, 
the lady-killer, the very young man, and the leader of fashion, are 
admirably depicted — BrooTclyn Eagle. 

A bright and satisfactory story. . . . Throughout the whole the 
reader is entertained by the wit and satire, the graphic portrayal of 
character, and the vivid description of certain phases of fashionable 
life. — Boston Transcript. 

An untutored child of nature, the heroine is used by the author 
with admirable effect as a foil to set off the highly artificial character 
of the social arrangements of life among the wealthy classes. The 
plot is intricate, ingenious, and full of exciting incidents, and the 
characters through whose agency it is developed are types of persons 
to be met with in " society," who act their parts to the life and lend a 
piquant charm to the story. — Albany Press. 

The tone of the book is fresh, breezy, healthy. It is so frank and 
natural throughout that it does one good to come into contact with 
the characters who figure in its pages. — TJtica Herald. 

A story which will find many readers, because it is written in a 
bright, pleasant style. . . . The characters are skilfully drawn and 
the narrative well managed. — Philadelphia North American. 

The author has skilfully contrasted the heroine with every variety 
of well-bred and ill-bred fashionables. . . . There is a great deal of 
skilful characterization in the narrative, and much sharp, if indirect, 
rebuke of current shams. — Cincinnati Gazette. 

The story is carefully finished in all its details, and is well adapt- 
ed to afford an insight into the various phases of society in the me- 
tropolis. — Rochester Herald. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York 

^^ The above work is for sale by all booksellei's, or will be sent by the 
publishers, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price. 



OLD ]^EW YOEK 



Reminiscences of an Octogenarian of the City of I^ew 
York (1816-1860). By Chas. H. Haswell. With 
Portrait of the Author, Many Illustrations, and a 
Map of E'ew York in 1816. Crown 8vo, Cloth, Orna- 
mental, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $3 00. 

This very clever and entertaining book. ... A book which, for 
its pictures alone, is a study, and when to these one adds the simple 
yet graphic descriptions of an observer thoroughly at home in his 
subject, and qualified by many experiences to write knowingly and 
spiritedly, one has a volume which is not only delightful to read, 
but valuable as a compendium of facts of real importance to be re- 
membered. — Churchman, N. Y. 

Mr. Haswell has been a close observer and a taker of notes, and an 
infinite deal of lore concerning churches, streets, theatres, and per- 
sons is crowded into the well-indexed pages of this book. — Atlantic 
Monthly. 

By far the most interesting of recent contributions to the litera- 
ture of Old New York. . . . The book is an exact and scholarly record 
of the ground it covers. It is a valuable addition to the literature 
that is fast provhig that New York, whatever may have been the 
case in the past, no longer lacks a history. — Evangelist, N. Y. 

These reminiscences are a rare accession to local history, and 
should be treasured by every true New Yorker. — Jewish Messenger, 
N. Y. 

It would be diverting to go on quoting from Mr. Haswell's book, 
for it has scarcely a page on which some such interesting incident as 
the above is not described. The volume is a perfect mine of topo- 
graphical information. It has something to say about innumerable 
landmarks, about the streets and their names, about restaurants and 
places of amusement noted in their day, about the thousand and one 
things which gave New York its physiognomy, about the thousand 
and one celebrities who were prominent in the making of the city. . . . 
It is a book to dip into ; one, moreover, in which the casual reader 
will never fail to find something worth having paused to scan. The 
illustrations are numerous, well chosen, and well executed. — N. Y. 
Tribune. 

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New Yokk 
The above work is for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the 
publishers, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price. 
3 



OLD I^EW YOEK 



A TouK Around jN"ew York, and My Summer Acre: 
being the Recreations of Mr. Felix Old boy. By John 
Flavel Mines. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, Cloth, Orna- 
mental, $3 00. 

It would be hard indeed to find anywhere else the same amount 
of information about the New York of fifty years ago as is crowded 
between the covers of this book. — Examiner, N. Y, 

The precision of the historiographer is softened by the grace of 
the lover and the sentiment of the poet; and the charm of all these 
lively recollections of interesting scenes, personages, and events can 
be felt throughout the entire volume. The work sparkles with anec- 
dotes and pen-portraits. — Magazine of American History. 

Colonel Mines was the most congenial of enthusiasts, and so his 
book is a delightful one. — N, Y. Times. 

In Old ISTew York. By Thomas A. Janvier. With 13 
Maps and 58 Illustrations. Post Svo, Cloth, Orna- 
mental, $1 75. 

To all curious prowlers about the city, old citizens or new-comers, 
we heartily commend Mr. Janvier's book. For x^ractical use, edifica- 
tion, and entertainment, no book on the subject that we know com- 
pares with it. — N. Y. Evening Post. 

Mr. Janvier has presented his material with an artist's eye for 
effect, making a most happily conceived and skilfully executed 
historical monograph. — Advance, Chicago. 

Overflows with all sorts of minute and curious information con- 
cerning both the old and the recent town. . . . Mr. Janvier has long 
been a zealous and sympathetic student of this subject. His text is 
supplemented with numerous maps and illustrations, instructive and 
interesting. — JV. Y. Sun. 

The ]^ew York Yolunteer Fire Department. By 
George W. Sheldon. With 145 Illustrations, many 
of which are taken from Old Prints. Square 8vo, 
Cloth, Ornamental, $4 50. 

No old "institution" of New York offers so many picturesque 
contrasts and romantic incidents in the course of its history as this. 
Its record of heroic acts and notable sacrifices is a long and glorious 
one. — iV. Y. Journal of Commerce. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York 

The above works are for sale hy all booksellers, or icill be sent by the 
publishers, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price. 
4 



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